Hey how's it going it's Russell in this
video we are going to be making an
absolute raw food classic I've been
wanting to make this video for some time
now raw lasagna ok so there's actually
quite a few ways you can make your
lasagna the recipe I'm giving you here
wherever you're seeing this video
there's a link to the recipe but in this
video we're going to be fermenting the
cheese so we're going to be using
macadamias to ferment into cheese and
you can do it without the fermentation
stage but if you're going to make this
dish it's not an everyday dish by any
means so you might as well go the fool
the whole hog the full mile and ferment
those macadamias into achieved because
it's just so so much nicer we've got a
pesto layer we've got a tomato sauce
layer and we've got like a worn up meat
layer as well which that will not meat
lay you can add in it to make it a
little bit more meaty you can add in
mushrooms like portobello mushrooms in
there as well but I'm trying to make it
as simple as I can even though it's got
a few different elements to it so let's
start off with that macadamia cheese
we're going to get some macadamias and
they're soap they've been soaked
overnight ideally because it makes them
more digestible and it also gives them a
bit more of a neutral flavor so into the
Vitamix with those then we're going to
add in some water and some probiotics
now the number one question I get asked
is what probiotics should I use and my
answer is always it actually it doesn't
matter you can use any probiotics if you
can only get acidophilus on its own
that's fine too I like to go for ones
that you can it's just a powder in a jar
so you can scoop it but if you can only
get capsules then just pull the capsules
apart all of those options will work
really really nicely so we're going to
blend that up and you might need to add
a little bit of extra water whenever I'm
following a recipe like that even if
it's my own I never put in all the water
in one go so if it calls for a cup of
water I might do a half to
three-quarters of a cup because it
always depends on you know how much
water you're soaked macadamias have
taken on so get it blending and then if
it's not blending properly it should
blend nice and smooth and vortex in like
you can see here so add all of the water
up until this point when it vortex is in
itself and if you need it just to touch
more water just do like a table
spoon or more around a tablespoon at a
time until it until it does this now we
want to sell some kind of contraption in
the kitchen depending on what you've got
with a bowl some kind of straining
device like a colander or a sieve and
then some kind of material whether
that's cheesecloth or whether it's a nut
milk bag not milk bags actually and my
preference they weren't really well
we're gonna set that up and then we're
going to pour in the macadamia cheese
and we're going to cover that up put a
weight on it so that it just gets rid of
any excess water and then we're going to
put that in a warm place overnight for
about 12 hours after 12 hours what
you're gonna see here is that you've got
a nicely for minted cheese or fermented
first stage cheese and underneath you're
going to get that way so it's that it's
the water with a little bit of the you
know the blended nuts in there and it's
got lots of probiotics in there it does
kind of look it looks grim sometimes but
it's actually really full of nutrition
so keep hold of it you can put it into a
glass you can use that to start off your
next batch if you want and in place of
water or you know half half the way half
water in your next batch and you can
also use it in smoothies so definitely
something to keep it will keep for I've
kept it for a couple of weeks in the
fridge because there's so much good
bacteria in there it really doesn't go
off it just gets more and more fermented
as time goes on so throw that into your
nut milks and you know your smoothies
whatever it is that you're making
alright so back to the cheese you'll
notice when we take it out the
cheesecloth here that it's actually much
firmer it breaks apart and if you look
in the middle there you can see it's
aerated like there's lots of little
bubbles in there it's definitely firmed
up because we've got rid of some of that
excess water that came out as way and it
holds together much nicer so we're going
to transfer that to a bowl and then
we're going to add in a few other
ingredients in this second stage the
first thing we're going to go in with is
some lemon juice and then we're going to
also add some garlic powder some onion
powder and some nutritional yeast and
the nutritional yeast is in flakes here
so we're just crumbling it up as it goes
in and then we're going to add a little
bit of salt
nice Celtic sea salt something like that
a gray salt with the minerals still
intact it's not a white table salt so in
with that before we start to mix so get
your hands in there mix it up get it all
nicely in call
and then put that to one side next up
we're going to make a beautiful fresh
tomato sauce with a mixture of fresh
tomatoes and sun-dried tomatoes so cut
up some fresh tomatoes into the Vitamix
with those and then we've got these
beautiful dark deep red sun-dried
tomatoes that they come in a packet so
they're not the ones that come in oil
because those can have other ingredients
and preservatives in them so we're
looking for the ones that come dry in
packets we soak them just to make them
soft it's not like I'm soaking the nuts
we soak the nuts because of the
nutritional aspect of soaking them gets
rid of the anti nutrients but the
sun-dried tomatoes we're just doing it
to get them a little bit softer so about
30 minutes is all that's needed you
could do that in slightly warm water to
speed things up a little bit and then a
rough chop on those before we put those
into the Vitamix now we're going to
sweeten this up a little bit with some
dates a nice beautiful whole food two
natural sweetener so just two dates you
could do one or you could do three if
you like if you like it a little bit
sweeter but two dates is their sweet
spot there we've got these beautiful
medjool dates and so we're gonna take
the stones out of those rough chop pop
them in follow that up with some garlic
some lemon juice and also a some dried a
mixed Italian herbs and then the final
thing is just a touch of olive oil
before we get it blended up so it's nice
and smooth it's still going to be a
little bit chunky because in the nature
of those sun-dried tomatoes it's gonna
be quite thick but blend it up just to
the the thickness and the chunkiness
that you desire okay then we're onto
some pesto so I'm gonna make some
gorgeous fresh pesto let's get a whole
bunch of a couple of bunches actually of
fresh basil chopped up roughly and into
the food processor this time because we
want to leave it a little bit chunky
rather than blend everything down which
the high-speed blender tends to make
everything nice and smooth so food
processor for this one so basil in some
finely chopped garlic and then some pine
nuts a good helping of pine nuts some
salt and I'd like to follow that with
some nutritional yeast as well which is
totally optional but I like the cheesy
flavor and then of course some lemon
juice and olive oil before we grind up
and pulse it up and get it nice and
chunky again you know you can just do
that to be the smoothness or the
chunkiness the texture that you prefer
for your pesto okay we're almost there
with all of our layers we're now going
to do the walnuts meat layer so we've
got some soaked walnuts here again we're
gonna do this in the food processor so
walnuts in the food processor some more
sun-dried tomatoes again they've been
soaked and chopped into the food
processor and then we're gonna add one
of my favorite ingredients actually for
getting a real nice depth of flavor and
that is a nice dark miso either a brown
rice or a barley miso which is also
really salty as well and then we want
some tamari and then some lemon juice
and then we're going to grind this up
get it pulsed up again choose the
texture that you want I find a nice kind
of rough chunky mixture is great it's
gonna sit inside that term that lasagna
perfectly okay the last two elements we
need to do just the last two quick
elements here are the courgette or
zucchini which we're going to make the
lasagna by the pasta strips with and
then we need to do this spinach as well
I like to add in a bit of the word
spinach which is optional but it really
makes for a nice mouthfeel and extra
flavor in there
so the zucchini or cause yet and we need
to cut those down so they're about the
length or just look just longer than the
length of your longest finger and I
would say so and get those get those cut
down you can kind of get a sense of
where we're cutting them here you can
see how long they are and then once
you've got your your pieces of courgette
you're gonna get those onto a mandolin
and get them cut nice and fine now if
you haven't got a mandolin you can do
this with a ribbon peeler you can get
them just right and when I say nice and
thin you don't want them too thin you
don't the wilting down we're not gonna
add any salt to this either and we're
just gonna leave them so that they will
they will sit on the in each level of
the lasagna and they will hold together
so not too thin but certainly thinner
than you will probably cut them with it
with a knife so use a mandolin or a
ribbon peeler ideally then we're going
to get to our spinach so spinach bit of
them so on there massage it up get it
wilted down really really thoroughly get
all of that excess liquid out of there
because we are actually going to build
these lasagnas individually but you can
totally build them in a baking dish as
well if you want to and the key to doing
that is to make sure that you get as
much of the water
of all the ingredients as you can if
you're building the the baking dish
version because what you'll find is that
if you don't do that you don't just have
a puddle of water when you you know if
you it will last several days in the
fridge if you come to cut a slice out in
the after it's come out the fridge and
you're just taking it out of a puddle of
water that's no fun so and we're going
to really get the water out of this of
this spinach you can see here squeezing
it into you get actually quite a lot of
liquid out and then arrange it on the
board and just kind of pull it apart and
that's ready to go okay this is the fun
part the really fun part is putting this
thing together and as I said we're
building them individually because this
just looks so so good but if you want it
if that you're making this is more of a
everyday meal for a family and friends
or you're taking it to a potluck or
something like that or you're
contributing it to a dinner party for
sure put it in a baking dish and make
one big lasagna that can be cut into but
this is how you make it individually and
obviously you can just tailor this to to
do it in a baking dish we're going to
put four strips of zucchini or courgette
down and slightly overlap them next
we're going to go on with our first
layer which is the tomato sauce so you
obviously want to be quite gentle here
with the tomato sauce so that you're not
moving those courgette pieces around
then we're going to crumble on some of
that cheese and I definitely find this
is easier to do with by hand rather than
a spoon but whatever way works for you
next we're gonna go on with some of that
walnut to meat and so crumble that on
again same same as you did with the with
the cheese
next is the pesto and ideally I mean you
can do these in whatever order you want
to this order I found is is the best
doing the tomato sauce first to hold
those courgette pieces together and then
everything seems to go nicely on top and
then we're gonna scatter on some of that
beautiful wilted spinach and then we've
got a couple of fresh pieces of tomato
here cut nice and thin overlap those
it's so nice to get those fresh
ingredients the spinach and the tomato
in their hole on top of you know all of
the other kind of blended and food
processed ground down stuff that we've
put in there as well I like to just
finish that off with it just a couple of
grinds of black pepper that's our first
layer done so we're going to on top of
all of that put another four strips of
courgette or zucchini and what you want
to do here you can see
then overlapped again but they are
they're facing a different direction
right so far first a zucchini were
facing that way then our second layers
going to be facing this way it just
seems to give it a little bit more
stability so that when you're serving it
it just holds together really nicely all
right so let's run through this quickly
again tomato sauce cheese layer then the
ground war nut meat layer some of that
gorgeous freshly made homemade pesto
some spinach and then another couple of
slices of beautiful ripe fresh tomato on
top of that top that off with another
couple of grinds of black pepper and
another layer of those courgette or
zucchini okay so you could garnish this
just really simply with some fresh
tomato what we are doing here is doing a
canal of macadamia cheese so Canal is
created as you can see here by pulling
I've just actually taken a little bit of
the macadamia cheese on a wet spoon and
making sure that you're keeping your
spoons wet because you're getting much
nicer glide to the to the spoons doing
that and you're pulling it towards you
if you've never done this before it does
take some practice you can probably find
I'm sure other videos teaching you how
to canal separately from this but it's a
it's a fun little skill to use per
little skill to have because as you can
see here Macy's beautiful canal of
macadamia cheese and then we're gonna
top that we've made this these beautiful
finely or small diced fresh tomatoes we
remove the seeds just the the outer part
of the tomato finely diced or a small
dice and mix that in with some
chiffonade of basil just makes a
beautiful topping over there maybe a
little bit of black pepper on the top
and then as you can see here's some
olive oil or won't be really so
fantastic here's some truffle oil which
i think is what we did around the
outside truffle oil round the outside
our just finishes off so well alright
that's it it's a it's a classic raw food
dish like I say it's got it's got a few
elements to it it's a bit of a project
but you know what making cook lasagna I
don't know if you've ever done that but
that's a bit of a project too so give
this a go it's an absolute classic you
may even have this mate you may have
heard of raw food because of royal
asagna it's just it's been out there for
years thanks so much for watching really
appreciate it I hope you enjoyed it
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see you next time
