Raw Repast

I tried some more of my “raw food” thing this weekend.

I had a combination packet of beans – I think there were about fifteen different kinds of beans in there. I soaked them over night then pureed them with some lime juice, olive oil and macadamia nut butter. It tasted pretty good, so I stuffed it inside a red bell pepper and that’s what I had for lunch on Saturday.

I had had a flu shot the day before, which, they say gives you a touch of the flu. I don’t know what made me feel so badly and gave me so much “intestinal distress”; the raw beans or the touch of the flu, but I was not a happy camper.

So, rather than healing myself, I went out for Ethiopian food on Saturday night. If you’ve never had Ethiopian food, lets just say that it contains just about every spice known to humans. I love Ethiopian food and this place was fantastic, but it was not the most prudent move to make.

The raw beans, the spicy Ethiopian food, combined with a touch of the flu. . . .

You know those over-the-shoulder harnesses that roller coasters have these days?

My toilet could have used one of those.

Not wanting to be beaten by the raw food experiment, I decided to try another raw food recipe on Sunday.

I still had a bunch of bell peppers and a gazillion grape tomatoes, so I decided to go that route. I began slicing the little tomatoes and was going to mix them with diced zucchini, fresh basil, diced carrots and stuff that in a bell pepper. All raw.

Then, I thought, “Aw, the hell with it.”

I had a can of garbanzo beans and tumped that in with the diced veggies along with some pesto and freshly-grated parmesan cheese.

Here’s what it looked like raw. Pretty, huh?

Then, again, I thought, “Aw, the hell with it,” drizzled it with olive oil and shoved the whole thing in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes.

Holy mother of god, this was good. Especially served over some jasmine rice.

Cooked jasmine rice.