This is a guest post from Michelle’s husband, Jeremy. He normally writes about geekier stuff over at jeremyfelt.com, but had a very good reason to stop by and write about food. Enjoy!

September is a busy month for Michelle and I. We each have birthdays and for 3 years now, we’ve been tossing in a wedding anniversary to make things more interesting. If we weren’t careful, the month could get out of hand going back and forth with gifts.

Now, while that would be fun, part of our adventure towards a less stuff life over the last few years has included calmer gift giving during birthdays and holidays. For us this makes it easier to focus on goals that we share. We’ll often do a trip or something that acts as a combo gift for everything. In fact, last year’s birthday/anniversary gift to ourselves was a scouting trip out to Portland — and now we live here. Success!

Anyhow. Let’s go back to the short version.

I asked Michelle what she wanted for her birthday a couple weeks ago and she said she would love it if I made a raw dish for her from scratch. Challenge!


Having been totally on board with our experiments in raw food, I’ve always stood just outside the border. I watch Michelle make some wonderful creations and am ready to taste at any second. However, I haven’t actually prepared anything raw that’s more complicated than a salad. I’ve made some really complex salads, but yeah.

So as soon as I said yes, I knew I had to pick something interesting. Something that involved the key tools: a dehyrdator, food processor and blender.

Luckily, we have research materials abound in the apartment. And even better, a newer book on the shelf is Live Raw from one of Michelle’s favorite raw chefs, Mimi Kirk. I didn’t have to flip through the pages long before I stumbled on her ‘Nachos This Side Of The Border‘ recipe and knew I found the perfect match.

I dove in.

   

Somehow I got all of the materials while grocery shopping with Michelle, including 8 ears of corn, without a correct guess at what the recipe was. I processed the corn, pulsed in the flax, spread out the mixture and even managed to dehydrate tasty things for 24 hours without going crazy and eating it all. I blended a wonderful nacho cashew cheese in the super wonderful Blendtec, and I plated the entire concoction, deliciously I might add, with avocados, red bell peppers, red onions and a few dashes of cayenne.

   

And things turned out so awesome. Warming the cheese in the dehydrator for a couple hours added the perfect nacho cheese look to it. The corn chips had the greatest texture. And the flavor combinations were fantastic! It’s entirely possible that I’ll never enjoy a processed corn chip the same way again.

I want to share the full recipe, but Mimi’s book is totally waiting for you and it is absolutely worth the price. And if you’re ever tentative about tackling a recipe that involves processing, blending and dehydrating, just go for it. None of this is unapproachable and if you screw up completely… how bad can 8 ears of corn taste. 🙂

   

Of course the real question is – did Michelle love it?