Vegan MoFo 2015 Day 6: Recreate a Restaurant Meal

Today I'm supposed to recreate a restaurant meal for you. Scroll down and you'll find my short video. Today I'm showing you my interpretation of a vegan raw meal at Present Moment Cafe in St. Augustine. We found Present Moment on the last night of a quick stop through St. Augustine last year. It's a lovely mostly raw vegan restaurant. Back in the day I never would have even considered a raw food restaurant, yet for the last several years I now seek them out. I could possibly see how someone on the typical standard American diet (it's called "SAD" for a HUGE reason!) might be more than a little surprised by a meal in a raw food restaurant, but thankfully more and more people are waking up to not only the benefits of eating raw, but how it can be elegant as well. The presentation at Present Moment was gorgeous (admittedly I didn't put as much pizazz into my presentation, I'm on a limited time frame), the food was delicious, and the people in there were so friendly. Almost a year later and we still talk about our meal there, and how we cannot wait to go back (it's quite a hike for us up to St. Augustine, but we'll get there again!) While we were there, I was so impressed by the food that I bought a copy of their cookbook (uncookbook?) on site. Although many of the recipes do contain nuts, I've been able to alter them for my own purposes with success anytime needed. For purposes of this video, I stuck with the recipes even though I'm still nut and oil free. The other happy vegan absolutely devoured the food the minute the video was finished, and pronounced it "deeeeeelicious" in his best Pop voice.

Here's my video, I've recreated a raw vegan pesto "pasta" using spiralized zucchini with nut "parm," and a raw brownie banana split. Instead of using the ice cream recipe from Present Moment, I did use the 4 ingredient ice cream recipe from the Vegan 8 blog. It's not raw, but has no added sugar, no nuts, and is absolutely decadent.

Recipes in this video were mostly from the book "Handmade in the Present Moment," but also include one from "The Vegan 8" blog. The vegan "Magic Shell" was one I pulled off the internet, you can use any recipe as long as it's vegan. Chocolate and coconut oil ARE magic when combined and drizzled over ice cream. I highly recommend Present Moment Cafe in St. Augustine, but until you can get there, pick up their book. I love it!

xo