Uncooking: A Different Kind of Cooking Class

[Amy Warren, LMHC / WQ Mag Columnist]

Cheese ravioli with pomodoro sauce, meat tacos with refried beans, butternut squash soup, kale tabouleh, brownies, and apple cinnamon crumble…sounds like a feast of cooked food, doesn’t it? In actuality, all of these dishes were the menu for the Introduction to “Uncooking” class led by Chef Scott Nuss at Simon’s Coffeehouse. Amazingly, no stoves or ovens were involved in this food preparation-- nor was there any meat. The focus of this class was “uncooking” – the preparation of food in its raw and live state. Scott used only a knife, cutting board, food processor and Vitamix blender to demonstrate the preparation of this raw foods feast.

Sunday was the perfect day to attend the Eat for Health Beginner class. After a day of over-indulging at the Suncoast Food and Wine Festival – eating almost every cooked food imaginable, the time was opportune to spend the day eating raw/live foods and detoxify my overworked digestive system. With my very favorite lunchtime chef Scott Nuss at the helm, I knew I could count on this food with a healthy accent to be delicious – because as you must know by now, I never like to be deprived of good food even on those days when I’m detoxifying.

The class began with an introduction to integrating raw and live foods into our diets and the benefits. With raw/live foods, there is a huge amount of difference in the nutrients, vitamins and enzymes the body receives. The body doesn’t have to use its finite amount of natural enzymes to break down the food. The end result is that after eating, you feel alive like the food you just ate instead of tired. One of the things I liked about this class was that Scott didn’t attempt to convert anyone to a total raw foods diet; he simply educated us that the more raw food you eat, the better it is for our health. We were introduced to raw foods techniques like soaking, sprouting, marinating, massaging (bet you never thought of doing that to food before) and juicing. Scott showed us that incorporating more raw foods into our diet doesn’t mean just eating more salads; there are taste-comparable alternatives to a traditional cooked diet.

As Scott led us through the actual food preparation, he inevitably offered one idea after another about how to change recipes to create yet another dish. By the time I left class, I felt like I had a broad repertoire of recipes from which to choose.

Scott demonstrated making a non-dairy cheese from cashews that everyone in the class seemed to love. A refried bean replacement integrated avocadoes and sun-dried tomatoes with spices for a fine substitute. A mixture of chopped walnuts, sun-dried tomatoes and spices served as the “meat” filling for the tacos on a taco shell made from dehydrated veggies.

For the “tabouleh,” cauliflower was pulsed in the food processor until it resembled the texture of bulgur wheat. By marinating and then massaging the kale, the flavor of the kale was akin to cooked kale. The Butternut Squash soup was flavored for the season with a close resemblance in taste to pumpkin soup.

Instead of pillows of pasta dough, mandolin-sliced pieces of turnip served as the ravioli stuffed with the seed cheese. If you’re turning up your nose, don’t. You’d be amazed by the resemblance, and think of the calories you’d save. Scott had originally planned to use beets for the ravioli; however, being the innovative chef that he is, he opted to use turnips instead when the beets were small. Once the raviolis were sealed with olive oil, we topped them with a delicious raw Pomodoro sauce (see the recipe of the week).

The desserts were especially inviting, and the brownies won rave reviews from the entire class. These unbaked brownies were made from only four ingredients: almonds, dates, raw cacao (the beans from which cocoa powder is made) and agave (a natural sweetener derived from the nectar of a succulent plant). Remarkably, these "brownies" tasted better to me than the traditional baked brownie, with a taste more comparable to chocolate mousse.

Due to the lack of sugar and overall healthiness of the dish, the Apple Cinnamon Crumble could serve as dessert as well as breakfast or a snack. Agave and dates were used to sweeten this crumble which could be replicated with a variety of fruits.

As we feasted on the food at the end of class, all of us were impressed with the results of this “uncooked” meal. Although each recipe seemed like a distant relative from the dishes it mimicked, each dish was tasty in its own right. I left the class feeling full and satiated. Much to my surprise, the next morning my scales showed a loss of 3.2 pounds in one day! I had lost the pound or two that I had gained at the food and wine festival and then some! Now that's an incentive to eat raw food!

When it comes to the preparation of raw foods, my experience has shown me that only a few chefs are able to master the art of preparing raw foods to satisfy the average person who isn’t following a particular health regimen. Scott is one of those rare masters. In part because he is also such a good chef of cooked foods, he is able to deliver raw food that is appetizing and healthful at the same time. The raw food that he used to prepare on a weekly basis at Simon’s Coffee House was in such demand that it is now offered daily.

Through Scott’s Eat for Health business, classes are now offered twice monthly at Simon’s so others can learn his techniques and recipes. The second class of the month on November 22 is an intermediate class focusing on raw food preparation which involves dehydrating foods. If you’re at all interested in incorporating more raw foods into your diet, I’d recommend taking Scott’s classes. His clear and simple instructions make this seemingly alien way of preparing foods while preserving their natural state seem easy. His creativity makes the food interesting, and his skills as a chef make the food tasty.

[Val Filipski]

Wow! How yummy do these creative meals sound - on my "must" do list. Thanks for the info.

[Lisa Mirman]

I really appreciate this overview of the class...and the pomodoro sauce recipe! I have been incorporating more raw food dishes into my family's diet, having so much fun discovering new great tastes and feeling empowered by the changes in body and health! Now my interest is piqued to know Scott has an intermediate class..wahoo! Thanks for sharing the recipe...definately going to make that as our garden produces this season's tomatoes!
Lisa Mirman (-: