welcome to my new blog "food, love, spirit"
i was inspired to start this blog because of this ceviche recipe i came up with this summer. i've made it for my friends and have been asked several times for the recipe. after my friend Heather requested it, i thought "heck, i need to do something about this." so here it is, the beginning of a new journey... thank you for coming along.
this is a refreshing, healthy, easy-to-make recipe that even meat lovers enjoy (true story!). and some even have said it tastes just like fish ceviche. whatever your diet preference, i think you'll find it delish.
what makes this recipe addictive is the freshness of the ingredients. i recommend you grow your own vegetables, or get them from your local farmers market. for this one showing, all the ingredients, except for the hot sauce, came from the Burbank Farmers Market and our home garden.
before i continue, i have to admit i'm not one to write down recipes, i never make the same thing twice, and personally i enjoy this creative process ;). i remember my proportions visually, if you want to have an exact recipe i say try it out and change it up and keep track of your measurements...until you find how you like it, then write it down...
start with this:
the base of this recipe is cucumber, zucchini and carrots, cucumber being the most abundant. so comparing carrots & zucchini with cucumbers, you should have 3 times more cucumbers than carrots or zucchini, whatever that equals to ;)
you don't want too many carrots because they overpower the taste of everything else. (you want everything to taste evenly, with the only obvious taste being lemon juice).
so lets say you have two carrots and two zucchini, then you want eight cucumbers.
going from there, here goes:
8 cucumbers
2 zucchini
2 carrots
1 bell pepper
3 tomatoes
1/4 red onion
bunch of cilantro
6 lemons
sea salt or himalayan
avocado
optional if you like spice: 1 fresh jalapeño or serrano (hotter) pepper
yep, that's it.
another key thing about this is getting it to be the right texture, so i recommend using a food processor, if you don't have one you can use a cheese grader and use the medium size grade...
you are going to process the cucumbers, zucchini, carrots and bell pepper. i use the "pulse" feature, you want it less chunky than mexican salsa/pico de gallo but also not like soup nor puree.
put all the processed vegetables in a big bowl and squeeze the lemons over them, add salt. you want to add plenty of salt, this is key in ceviche. this is why i recommend sea or himalayan salt. never ever ever use common table salt, yes the one with the little girl holding the umbrella or others like it, such salt has been bleached, processed and turned into something unnatural and not good for you.
continuing after my rant about salt:
while you let it sit, chop the onion, tomatoes and cilantro, then mix them in with the processed vegetables. let sit for about five minutes, this allows for all the flavors to soak in.
while they soak lets talk tostadas. if you are lucky enough to live in l.a. at the local farmers markets, burbank, culver city, encino, and others, there's a vendor who sells organic nopal tostadas called "nopaltilla". they are crazy good, with a perfect crunch.
nopal is a cactus traditionally eaten in Mexico. when dried and grounded nopal harina can be made into tortillas and of course tostadas just like corn can. and what's cool about nopal tostadas is that they're non-gmo, while most of corn in the u.s., over 80% has been genetically modified, ugh...
anyway, nopal also has a high nutritional value. you can learn more about it here
to serve, cover the tostada with the ceviche, don't be greedy ;) then add sliced avocado on top, and of course it couldn't be ceviche without hot sauce, my favorite: cholula
thank you for reading!
the end...
and here some inspiring organizations i love:
sea shepherd
tree people
amazon watch
food, love, spirit,
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