Last night's dinner was delicious, but I'm afraid to say that I don't think it was worth the pain that resulted from it!

This is the raw beet raviolio with cashew cheese filling, tarragon, and pepper puree from the great "cook"book Raw Food Real World. It is absolutely delicious, super easy (especially for a raw recipe!) and nice and filling for a cold winter's night. Unfortunately, we didn't use a very good mandoline slicer to cut our thin beet sheets. As a result:

Both my mom and I sliced our fingers open trying to slice the ravioli sheets (that's my grandma, the nurse, on the left, fixing us up!) Next time, I won't try to use something that isn't a mandoline slicer to make thin rounds. (Of course, the next morning, we realized that our food processor can do mandoline slices. Go figure.)

And here was this morning's breakfast: the most scrumptious pancakes that you will ever taste, vegan or not! As can be seen above, my grandma and I both had ours with bananas, organic maple syrup, and chopepd pecans. My mom had hers with some butter (she's not vegan) and strawberry reserves and seemed quite content with that as well. My dad just drowned his in maple syrup, as usual. You can find the original recipe on vegweb: http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=5138.0

2 1/2c. flour (I used half unbleached white and half whole wheat pastry)
2 tbsp. sugar
2 tbsp. baking powder
1 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 tsp. salt
2 1/2c. non-dairy milk (I used rice milk)

Lightly mix all the ingredients; mixing too much will result in tough pancakes. Let sit for 5 to 10 minutes to rise. Gently fold the batter, and then let sit to rise for another 5 or 10 minutes (I skipped this second rising time because I was too hungry!) On a lightly oiled skillet, drop tablespoon fulls (or bigger, depending on how big you want them) of batter and cook until lightly browned on both sides. Enjoy!

Peace!