Wow, I’ve been meaning to post lots of stuff about food and recipe trials over the last few months, but just don’t have enough screen time lately. I’ll back-date some photos and reviews when I get around to it, but at the moment, I’m so excited about tonight’s development that I’m making time to document the fact that we all ate the same dinner tonight. Woo-hoo! We’ve made so much progress on the food-front with Ethan that I am beside myself with joy. He has been taking a small shot (about 1-2 tsp) of wheatgrass juice along with his enormous salad for breakfast every morning. (Salad consists of torn green leaf, romaine or bib, chunks of baked/seasoned tofu, and Seward’s yellow onion white miso dressing.) Every day he has numerous servings of apples and carrots. And tonight…yes, tonight…drum roll…
He ate exactly the same dinner as Jeff and me!
http://jeffilse.zenfolio.com/p509463616/h1b5f88f#h1b5f88f
Wild Rice Caviar and Shiitake Mushroom Rolls from Renee Loux Underkoffler’s _Living Cuisine_, p. 331 with Miso Wasabi Dipping Sauce, p. 343.
The sauce was a bit too “spicy” for Ethan, so he used plain shoyu for dipping. He also requested one roll with avocado instead of the marinated mushrooms, which I accommodated. While I was rolling the sushi, he enthusiastically requested a side of plain avocado, and I enthusiastically accommodated. 
Later, he requested regular servings of avocado for lunch. Is this a dream, or what?
We all enjoyed this recipe, and I really enjoyed preparing it. Some of Renee’s recipes are more complex than I prefer for a simple family dinner, but now that I’m more experienced “sprouting” wild rice (and I have lots of sushi-rolling under my belt), this one pulled together rather easily. Now, if only I had a larger food processor…
Well, I’m watching craigslist and working on manifesting that one. Turns out I only had to run two batches in my puny 4-cupper. It’s worth mentioning that while the quantities of “caviar” and marinated mushrooms called for in this recipe seem like way too much for four sheets of nori, they’re actually quite suitable. I did end up making five thick rolls, and I could have done 6-8 thinner rolls just fine. The thick rolls are nice, but next time I’ll slice them into 6-8 shorter pieces, instead of just four large ones. I suspect any leftover caviar would dehydrate nicely into tasty crackers.
An error in this recipe is that it calls for 2.5 cups long-grain wild rice for sprouting (yields 2.5 cups). Well, which is it? I started with 2.5 cups, but then I used only 2.5 cups of the expanded rice for the recipe. I intend to use the remaining rice for something else.
Also worth mentioning is that I use only Native Harvest wild rice, which grows naturally in the lakes and rivers of Northern Minnesota and is hand harvested and wood parched by tribal members using traditional methods, available from White Earth Land Recovery Project. Wild rice is controversial among raw foodies due to the industrialization of what’s available in most grocery stores.
In Rainbow Green Live Food Cuisine, Dr. Gabriel Cousens says, “Wild rice has long been thought to be a raw food product in the live-food movement because of its said ability to sprout. Apparently this information is incorrect. Industry processing of wild rice to remove bacteria and the husks involves high heat treatment. Growers and processors in the wild rice industry inform us that the seed is subject to 300 degrees F temperatures for about one hour forty-five minutes. Unprocessed wild rice is amber-colored and turns the familiar dark brown color only after this high heat processing.”
In Living Cuisine, while she cautions against rice that is grown in “commercial diked paddies from hybridized seeds wtih toxic agrochemicals and is mechanically harvested,” Renee Loux also says, “Wild rice, or long-grain rice, is neither a grain nor a rice, but the fruiting seed of a tall, aquatic grass indigenous to the Great Lakes of North America. It is one of the oldest foods still in common use as a great and tasty source of protein, iron, and B vitamins.”
I usually default to Cousens’ guidance, but since I know where my manoomin is coming from, I’m delighted to incorporate one of my old favorites into living cuisine dishes. Native Harvest manoomin is available both in packages and in bulk at Seward Co-op and many other metro area co-ops. Hand harvested manoomin is also available from Sam and Melissa Thayer.
Asher is one of those kids very willing to try foods ( thank goodness) what still seems to work is coming up with weird names for it or if he helps in parts of the process of cooking it/growing it/mixing it We go by the premise of trying things every time and it is ok not to like them but not to set it in stone cause a different prep or if he creates it he will eat it
. congrats on the one meal! We are trying for a 60-75% raw diet. and he loves to learn about the fruits veggies..My parents use to go on a canoe trip every year in northern wi and harvest wild rice themselves. Now i am thinking i need to find out where!
I am interested in making the kombucha as well as trying my hand at making living apple cider vinegar.