kindergarten lessons in raw food!

oops, so it's already july but i'm a bit behind in posting. a few weeks back, i had the pleasure of being in a kindergarten class for a morning and they usually bake bread and i didn't want to deprive them of their friday cooking lesson so i thought i'd try an 'un-cooking' lesson!

first we combined ingredients for the marinara. this is my go-to sauce that i got from you guessed it, ani phyo. i'll have to look up what book. whenever i'm at a loss for what to bring to a potluck or to quickly whip up for dinner guests or to add to something else (like back in february's lasagne), i love blending this up! i'm grateful i used a recipe i was really familiar with as trying to coordinate jobs to involve 15 active young ones is a challenge! in hindsight, i should've tested the recipe out using the hand blender in advance. and i maybe should've measured out everything first as that took awhile and we almost had a REALLY oregano-inspired marinara. but it's funny, no matter how non-exact the ingredient combinations were, it turned out well! the kids loved smelling the spices (basil was a favourite) and were curious of what this would turn into.

 the sauce took so long though that i had to send them for their recess play time while i took 20 minutes frantically trying to hand-blend the sauce into something without the big sun-dried tomato chunks! or, my worst fear, garlic chunks!

 here is the part i knew would be a hit... the spirooli! before recess, i was so scared about the results as the kids were eagerly telling me how much they didn't like vegetables (ack, the whole recipe!), especially tomatoes (gah! fresh and sun-dried in this dish!) but telling them i worked in a restaurant seemed to help. since i 'must know what i'm doing', they seemed to trust the vegetable preparations!
each of them had a few turns of the spirooli to turn zucchini into noodles. the best was when one exclaimed, "so that's how you make noodles!" i excitedly showed them the inner of the zucchini that reminds me of corkscrew pasta when the rest has been spiroolied away and they all wanted to try it! even the top part (just raw zucchini!) that i cut up into wedges when one said it tasted like pizza. must have been the smell of the sauce nearby.

 after finishing the noodles, they took turns shaking nutritional yeast and hemp seeds for a "veggie parmesan" and then sat at places at their tables with real plates and forks (none of that plastic business!).

one student went around spooning the 'rawmesan' onto plates of people who wanted it and many did! and many liked it! some were calling it sugar but whatever! many asked for seconds or thirds of the pasta. so it must have been a success!

hurrah!

korean middle school cafeteria winter-styles day 15

breakfast... the last of my granola (sniff!), some pineapple and salad/*roasted* nori, ahem, kim (i am in korea and all, i should be practicing my minimal korean)...

 there was tofu at lunch and soy/onion/veg sauce so i went for it. oranges were a nice surprise! (snuck some for later) and i added some hemp hearts to my salad.

 bean sprouts and onion or garlic or something with carrot strips and the salad... this time with the rest of my package of hemp hearts and the end of my bag of croutons. apple cider vinegar to keep it from blowing away...

now that i'm approaching my last week (i leave in one week tomorrow morning!), i'm thinking of emptying my jars (olives, walnut butter, chickpea miso...) so i don't come back with half-used food. i'd rather keep things unopened or totally demolish them. so we'll see how it all works out...
i'm getting super excited to get a vitamix when i get home (i got some money for one for christmas/birthday) and start making some new foods at home! making food at home again (rather than on trays in the cafeteria or at the desk in my room) will be AMAZING.
seoul tomorrow! yay!!!

korean middle school cafeteria winter-styles day 14

getting close to the end of my raw granola stuff. tomorrow is the last day of that! had it with almond milk, but of course, and the obligatory salad with *roasted* seaweed and brought the last of my homemade dehydrator ginger red onion flax crackers. by the time i got to breakfast this morning, one of the chefs was carting the oranges away! boo! they brought out persimmons right after which is great too of course. but it's exciting to switch up the fruit!

 lunch... okay this was the envy of every eye that spied my tray. one of the chefs prepared some of my brown rice and then they had what i think are perilla leaves steamed up and salad that i put apple cider vinegar and hemp seeds on. i rolled up some brown rice with the greens and some salad and dehydrated lemon ginger pumpkin seeds inside raw nori.

 oh yes! not perfect looking but oh so great!!!

 tonight i got another bowl of the brown rice but i was too lazy to make sushi so i just had the nori broken up on top (doesn't mix as easily as the roasted stuff but it was still a welcome taste). the salad was topped with the vinegar and hemp seeds again.

korean middle school cafeteria winter-styles day 13

breakfast! the raw hemp granola and almond milk and salad and persimmons on the side! yay!

some green stuff on the side was exciting at lunch. also the banana because, oh yah, mashed it up again with cacao nibs. LOVE THIS. added hemp seed to my salad. had to eat a vega vibrance bar after this though. and some teriyaki sprouted almonds!

 dinner... my head chef friend made some of the organic brown rice i brought! hurrah! it was nice to have something warm, i have to admit. it tasted like oatmeal. but i was hungry and it worked MUCH better than the white rice they serve. i have been confusing the chef by not taking white rice (which is served at every meal)... it is vegan but to me, it is so pointless (and maybe even painful!) to eat it!
ooh anyways, i had salad too (duh) and splashed some apple cider vinegar on it with crumbs of raw bagels. drinking some chickpea miso as i write this... 3 days until seoul and 9 days until i leave for home!

heart + seoul

i only get 2 days in seoul this trip and today was one of them. eek!

day started in the school cafeteria... and i tried my room-made quinoa with chickpea miso and hemp seeds atop of the salad with *roasted* seaweed and lovely oranges on the side!

 okay and i didn't get a photo of just my roasted veggie burger at the 'honest' loving hut restaurant in itaewon. oops. well it's not raw either. but vegan amazingness!
me and darren met mipa from alien's day out at veggie holic bakery which was rad!
and then for dinner i had a veggie burrito plus avocado sans cheese and sour cream at dos tacos in hongdae. also not raw at all but mighty delicious!

korean middle school cafeteria winter-styles day 6

so... this morning... greens i could eat, nuts i could eat (not raw but STILL) and roasted nori... i don't know how others are so hungry by lunch time! 4.5 hours until lunch? no problem! and fruit galore! back home, i'd call these asian pears. but if i'm in asia, what are they called?

 cucumber in some oniony garlic vinegar, banana! and hemp seeds on the ol' faithful salad for lunch!

 it's pizza night after dinner so that generally ironically means no options for me for dinner in the cafeteria. but at least there was salad. dulse and hemp did me well. and then some oranges were brought out. YES!

 and yeah, my excitement while everyone eats pizza (if i can wait until then) is these cookies. yippee!

korean middle school cafeteria day 10

i added goji berries to my cereal this morning. excitement! ah, and a lot of coconut apparently.













my sesame gaufrettes from back home got all soft in the package :( so i couldn't do sandwiches like i was hoping. but it was nice to have a different taste in my mouth. onions!













i added everything i could think of to try make the salad more interesting for dinner. it helped. dulse, sun-dried toms, sunflower seeds, hemp hearts, olive oil and apple cider vinegar and nutritional yeast!

korean middle school cafeteria day 2

there were bananas in the cafeteria this morning which were PERFECT for slicing on my apple cinnamon chia/buckwheat/etc. cereal












lunch's excitement was the yellow peppers in the salad (i added shelled hemp seed to this and tamari for dressing) and the frozen persimmon! it appears the cooks froze the persimmons as they were quite ripe (and on the verge of not so goodness) but really, persimmons have such a small window of perfect ripeness and i thought it was great! (and i went back and convinced the lady working the persimmon table to give me another) totally going to freeze them at home.













so then dinner... i was debating opening my pesto to make things interesting but i suppose i'll save it for later, like when camp actually starts (tomorrow is day 1). so... tonight i added dulse, tamari and nutritional yeast to the salad. and oranges were a treat!