I don’t know what to call this nor am I able to share an exact recipe, regardless – this must be shared so you can make something equally fantastic!

Lately, I’ve been inspired by the 80/10/10 principle. The premise is you’re eating 80% from raw vegan carbohydrates (fruit/veg), 10% raw vegan protein, and 10% raw vegan fat (NOTE: Food could be cooked too, but my fascination lies with the raw vegan as of late). I like this as it’s a simpler way of eating – ranging from mono meals to diverse but whole fruit/vegetable meals, full of flavor, and on the lower fat side.

Although with those numbers it would seem like there are a lot of calculations involved and writing down bits and pieces, but for me, it’s really just about eating whole food. This morning for instance, I grabbed a bunch of bananas and started eating. I hadn’t tried that before and didn’t think I could do it. I ended up eating 6 over the course of the morning. The first two I ate pretty quickly and the rest maybe every 15-20 minutes, while drinking water. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would – this would also make for a great option when traveling. Most hotels that do continental breakfasts always have bananas and even most gas stations now carry them.

Back to today’s lunch! I’ll list the ingredients and how I layered but the rest is up to you.

Ingredients:

• 2/3 of a large English cucumber, thinly sliced with mandolin or knife
• green leaf lettuce, thinly sliced
• 2 carrots, ends removed and peeled, then shredded
• couple handfuls each of parsley and cilantro, pulsed in the food processor
• 10-20 leaves of fresh basil, thinly sliced
• about a 1/4 yellow onion, thinly sliced
• a couple of campari tomatoes, thinly sliced

The Sauce:

• 1/3 of a large English cucumber, diced
• a sprig or 3 of cilantro
• garlic powder
• 1-3 tablespoons of tamari
• 1-2 tablespoons of white miso
• juice from 1/2 lemon
• 1 tablespoon of pine nuts
• 1/2″ of peeled ginger, minced or small chopped

I blended the sauce using my larger tribest cup until it was smooth. Grab a deeper pan, like 8×8 and start layering the English cucumber, green leaf lettuce, carrots, basil, parsley, cilantro, and onion and throwing in the sauce every few steps until you run out.

This filled my 8×8 pan and Jeremy wanted some for his lunch, so I cut it in half and it came out of the pan nicely. If he hadn’t wanted it, I would have worked on it myself.

The only salt in here is derived from what is in the vegetables naturally and the tamari, which is like a soy sauce. The basil, cilantro, and parsley add so much great flavor that I don’t find myself wanting to add any additional seasonings.

I am very pleased with this meal and of course can’t wait to make a variation again soon! It would be perfect and versatile for any veggies you have on hand, like bok choy, daikon radish, and even jicama.

Good luck and good eating!

xoxo