I’d been eating 100% raw food for barely over five months when Thanksgiving came up. You know what that means. Killing the fatted tofu chicken or fake turkey roll. Those options were lost to me. During DD’s 34 days of eating raw, she made her own version of Joel of rawlifeline’s Un “Meatloaf”. Inspired by her success, I decided to venture forth and try my hand making it for the holiday celebration at DS2’s family’s house.
The day before Thanksgiving, I started on my creation. That’s one thing about Hollywood Raw. It takes a lot of time. It’s also expensive and high in fat. Three good reasons to keep such recipes for very special occasions.
I don’t have pictures of the preparation of the dish but I went by this recipe:
Un “Meatloaf” from rawlifeline
1C walnuts
1C sunflower seeds
1C almonds
Filtered water for soaking seeds and almonds
2 cloves garlic
1/2 C chopped parsley
1/2 C chopped celery
1C chopped red bell pepper
1C marinated portobelo(optional)
1Tbl chopped onion
2 Tbl rosemary
1 Tbl tarragon
1 Tbl jalapeno
1 Tsp cumin
Homogenize nuts, seeds, garlic, stir in remaining ingredients. Form into loaf dehydrate for 1 hour. Remove and top with BBQ dehydrate for additional 2-3 hours. ENJOY!!!
I didn’t have the marinated portobellos which probably would have made it better. Anyway, after shaping it and dehydrating it overnight, here’s what it looked like:

The recipe for the sauce came next:
BBQ
1C tomatoes
1/2C sundried tomatoes
1/4 C chopped onion
1 clove garlic
1/2 Tsp jalapeno
4 basil leaves
4 dates
1/4C Braggs or sea salt
1/4C olive oil
Blend
I’m posting it (and the other one) just as it came to me in an e-mail.
The recipe didn’t explain what to do with it so here’s what I did:

This is on a small salad or dessert plate so it isn’t quite as large as it looks.
My dehydrator is limited when it comes to making oversized things that need to be surrounded by the forced air. Necessity is the mother of invention so I came up with a plan:

It worked like a charm. Next morning, I got it out:

It actually looked like a baked “meatloaf”.
To get it ready to travel, I put it inside the container and closed it up (not shown):

It was fortunate I had a lid on it because when I was loading the car, I managed to drop it upside down. It was okay and all I had to do was scrape a little of the sauce off the inside of the lid.
I was still new at eating raw and didn’t realize I shouldn’t have avocado and nuts at the same meal but my Thanksgiving salad was still pretty:

Normally, I would have eaten the salad out of the salad bowl but I was nice and put it on a plate with the rest of the meal (I also made Carrot Pecan Sunburgers and Mushroom Gravy [without the mushrooms] but those are for a different post):

I have no idea what the nutritional breakdown is but it’s probably 70% fat, 20% protein and 10% carbohydrates. Not exactly 811rv.
To show the contrast of our meals, I took a picture of my DIL’s plate, too:

I had plenty to share but no one took me up on it—they wouldn’t even eat my salad! It’s like they were afraid the live food would “get” them.
When I got back home, I sliced up the rest of the loaf and put it back in the dehydrator:

It had a good flavor but it was a little too “wet” as far as the texture was concerned. I don’t know what I could do to fix that problem unless I dehydrated some of the juicier ingredients before mixing them together. Hmmmmmmm. I might try that during my next attempt.
August seems an odd time for posting holiday fare but the days are flying by. Get a jump on deciding what to fix. It’ll take a lot of the pressure off.
Thanks for sharing Tommie, I will try this ‘loaf’ recipe with the portobello mushrooms, as portobello mushrooms are my fav. shroon. Good for you for being so prepared. You are my hero!
XO
Floop
When I try it again I’ll cut the recipe and maybe make 1/4 of the total. Three cups of nuts/seeds is a lot for one person to eat in a few days’ time.
A Raw Vegan spending a holiday in the Land of Cooked has to be prepared, hero or not. When I stay at home on holidays, I eat my normal simple food but Cooked Foodists expect some form of over-indulgence even from someone like me! For me, personally, it’s no longer that important.
Mmm! That looks great! I am going to print this recipe. I just found your blog, I look forward to reading more about your journey!
Thanks, Lauren! Are you transitioning to raw?
There’s lots more to write. When I started the Story of my Life, it was supposed to be four posts. HA! 😀
I will keep that in mind about cutting the recipe to 1/4 of the total. As, three cups of nus/seeds is a lot.
If you will be sharing with other people, the whole recipe might be needed. It depends on the situation. If you have cooked foodists who would rather eat dirt than raw food, cut it ‘way down.
What do you mean when you say….”Homogenize” nuts, seeds, garlic. Doesn’t make any sense to me………sorry.
Hi, Betty! This isn’t my recipe and I had to interpret that part since Joel didn’t see fit to explain it. What I took it to mean is to run it through the Champion juicer with the blank plate in place. He’s a little vague on his instructions but that gives a person lots of latitude to make it his/her own. When I make it again, I plan to chop some of the walnuts to give more texture.
This looks so good my mouth is watering.Thanks so much for sharing.About how long does it take to prepare not including the dehydrator?Do you have any raw pasta recipies?what is on the raw food plate that is covered in white sauce?
I only made it that one time, Marie, and that was almost five years ago. It’s quite involved but if you have your mise en place, it would simplify it. I don’t remember how long it took. For raw pasta, I either use spiralized zucchini or turnip (I soak the turnip in lemon juice to make it less bitter and more pliable) or my favorite, kelp noodles (Sea Tangle). The patty is a Carrot Pecan Sunburger.
This looks really great I am definitely going to make it, thanks for sharing
Fred
Let me know how it turns out and if you like it. The loaf is very rich.