Who says you can’t do raw food in the winter? We have our dehydrators, and some great techniques that will enable us to recreate some of our favorite dishes with all of their nutrients and enzymes intact! I happen to love leeks. I love tarts. Thrown together with some marinated mushrooms and spinach, you have a healthy, beautiful, gourmet dish that is worthy of your holiday table! Take a look at the ingredients. Instead of using butter, cream and eggs, we use a few cashews! This is super easy and delightful.
- 2 C Sliced Mushrooms
- 1/3 C Virgin Olive Oil
- 3 T. Nama Shoyu (raw organic soy sauce)
- 2 C Spinach
- 1 1/2 C Leeks (thinly sliced)
- 1 1/2 C Cashews
- 1 1.2 C Water
- 2 t. Tarragon
- 1 t. white pepper
- pinch Celtic sea salt
The night before: combine mushrooms, olive oil and nama shoyu. Mix well, place in refrigerator to marinate. 10 hours before serving:
Wrap foil around the outside of an 8″ tart pan. You are doing this to prevent leakage. Rinse mushrooms and spread in the bottom of a prepared (oiled) 8″ tart pan. Crush spinach between hands and spread on top of the mushrooms. Spread leeks on top of the spinach.
In Vitamix or blender, combine cashews, water, tarragon, pepper and salt. Blend until very well blended. Pour over veggies in tart pan. Place in dehydrator. Dehydrate at 145 for 1 hour, reduce heat and continue dehydrating at 116 for another 9 hours.
{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }
I think I’ll get the fixin’s for this today and start marinating the mushrooms tonight. It looks yummy!
I have two questions Susan. Are the cashews soaked and how do you place a tart pan in a round dehydrator? Do you have to use a square one with removable shelves. ( My next purchase:)
This sounds delightful! I happen to love leeks and mushrooms as well! Holy yum!
As you know, I always soak my nuts as soon as I get them but these do not have to be “wet” for the recipe. Also, you can use your round dehydrator if you use small enough tart pans. the 4″ might work. Then you would make little tarts and cut back the dehydration time.
This look so amazing, but do you think it would be possible to sub another nut/seed for cashews? They are so expensive here
What a lovely tart. Looks delicious!
i have a question–i don’t have a tart pan. could i just use a 8×8 glass pan? i also have mini-tart pans. no foil either.
Michal–a lot of people sub sunflower seeds for cashews. sometimes there is a bit of a sunflower taste so it depends on if the other flavors in the recipe are strong enough to mask it.
You can use the 8 x 8 but it just won’t un-mold well.
This recipe was absolutely delicious!!! Thank you for posting this. I just converted to raw food about 6 months ago and was craving some “real” food. I split this between 2 tart pans with the removable bottoms and it turned out like a dream. I had to substitute thyme for the tarragon which worked out great. I highly recommend everyone try this – it’s a keeper in my recipe book. The only thing I might change the next time is using a little less water with the cashews. And I also found spooning a little of the cashew “creme” over each layers worked well, instead of at the end.
Enjoy!
HOW do you slice this even if you were to want to use a pizza slicer for instance with the foil underneath? Does the foil not get shredded?
I just cut it with a knife. I use a tart pan with a removable bottom. There is no tin foil involved.
Wrap foil around the outside of an 8″ tart pan. You are doing this to prevent leakage. Rinse mushrooms and spread in the bottom of a prepared (oiled) 8″ tart pan. Crush spinach between hands and spread on top of the mushrooms. Spread leeks on top of the spinach.
Oh–so THAT is not on the bottom–AROUND the bottom!~ SORRY–could’nt figure that out!~
This is one of my favorite recipes. It’s the ultimate winter comfort food and absolutely delicious! Thanks Susan!
Thanks! I think I am going to make it tonight!
This was divine! It looked and tasted great, and the cashew sauce was simply delicious. I feel a mushroom stroganoff recipe evolving out of this one! I had company over, who are non raw foodists and they simply devoured it. One to be repeated.
hi, I’ve just made this following the recipe to the letter, but there was still a lot of liquid at the bottom mushroom layer. I’ve had to flip it upside down (luckily it hasn’t fallen apart) and put it back in the dehydrator. Is it normal to have so much liquid at the bottom? I had even used a little less water than you state in the recipe. Thanks!
Helene…I just re-read your comment. There is foil but it goes around the outside, not the inside so there isn’t any when you cut.
OSG You might just need to dehydrate more. There are many things that can affect the dehydration. It is different than cooking in an oven.
As I haven’t converted totally to raw, I do not have a dehydrater. I love the sound of this recipe. Would it be possible to prepare it and bake in the oven? If so , for how long and at what temperature would be recommended?
This was a HUGE success at a dinner party we had Saturday night. There was nothing left! Everyone raved about it.
Also served Cranberry Pecan Torte and OMG Pecan Bars… all BIG HITS!! My husband thinks the OMG Pecan Bars are out of this world.
Interestingly, hubby made his scrumptious veggie lasagna and was disappointed that the raw foods were more popular than his lasagna. And these were all SAD eaters. Ha ha.
This recipe sounds great and I would love to try it but I thought raw foods shouldn’t be heated above 118 degrees?
When you increase the temp for the first hour, it is much more efficient and less bacteria producing than dehydrating at the lower temp the whole time. The food is just giving off moisture during that first hour and the food temperature never goes above 115 so, yes, it is still raw.
I tried this a couple of times and it was very good but as Helen I thought the tin foil was supposed to be inside the tart pan…
Susan I have a couple of questions:
- I don’t see the cashew cream in your pic, isn’t be supposed to be poured over the leeks and covered them completely?
- My tarts were never so compact to require a knife, I always scooped it with a spoon. the sauce on top had hardened a little in the dehydrator but the mushrooms on the bottom still had some liquid.
I’m doing something wrong?
Thanks
The instructions are very specific. The foil goes on the outside of the tart pan, the cashew cream gets poured over the top. Your mushrooms may have been too wet from rinsing. Cheers!
I see this recipes been up for a long time, but I just found it and made it. It was amazing!! I made a couple of changes I thought id share. I was making something else with ground flax and sunflower seeds so I put a layer on the bottom to catch the liquid that I thought it might produce. I also mIxed the chopped spInach with about 2/3 of the cheese and used basil since I had fresh, it went into the cheese too. Then I spread the rest on top and sprinkled with a little nutritional yeast. The result was a tart with a crust on bottom and nice “cheesy” top. Thank you for the recipe, sorry to change it, but it was the same basic idea.
Just made this and it is out-of-this world crazy good. Pairs well with quiwa (sp) or rice. The flavor is rich and satisfying, Bravo!
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