Before joining the blogworld, I don’t think I even knew what the “raw food” movement was. Here, however, it’s been quite a craze over the past few years. Now, I could never give up cooked meals, but I absolutely appreciate some uncookin’ every once in awhile. My favorite dessert is raw, after all!

Today’s class focused on cleanse & detox via a “living foods,” or raw, diet. The science behind this dietary path is that uncooked foods are higher in enzymes than their heated counterparts, especially when prepared with methods such as soaking, fermenting and sprouting.

Though it might seem easy to prepare raw dishes, a lot of the recipes are quite labor-intensive. Because throwing something on the stove in a saute pan isn’t really an option, you need to get creative with your flavor profiles, cuts and condiments. Our class put together over a dozen delicious plates!

Jicama salad: a combination of raw diced jicama, avocado and yellow pepper with a tahini dressing that had a similar feel to chicken salad (make no mistake…you wouldn’t really compare this to chicken salad, but for an entirely raw, vegan version, it was damn delicious.)

Summer squash salad with dulse. Because the dulse wasn’t cooked, the student responsible for this dish soaked it in apple cider vinegar to get rid of the overly salty, seawater flavor. It was light, fresh and flavorful- one of my favorites of the meal.

Mixed nut and vegetable pate, made from soaked walnuts, almonds, pine nuts, peppers, carrots and onions. Taste-wise it was quite good and had an interesting combination of flavors, but I’m not a big fan of the texture of nut pates.

Sunflower pate with dill: same story. The dill made me like it better than the prior pate, though. Love me some dill! (I’m craving a pickle all of a sudden, no joke.)

Kefir, or whole milk fermented with probiotics. I’ve never been a milk drinker (as a kid, I used to eat endless bowls of cereal until there was nothing but a teaspoon of milk left to dump), so I passed on this one, especially after catching a whiff of the pungent sour smell.

Vegetable soup, which contained carrots, tomatoes, avocados, onion, bell pepper, cucumber and corn. This was surprisingly sweet and reminded me of a blended gazpacho. The corn provided some pleasant chew, too.

Cinnamon beets, which were spiralized before being tossed lightly with the dressing. I adore cooked beets, but raw they taste much different and weren’t totally my cup of tea, though the cinnamon dressing was an intriguing taste.

Fresh corn salad- just raw corn, red pepper, and celery with a simple dressing. This was refreshing and reminded me a lot of summer. Definitely something you could serve at a BBQ without anyone ever knowing it was “health supportive.” By the way, is it May yet?

Wheatgrass juice with apple and lemon. I’m a wheatgrass wimp and can’t handle it- my stomach just freaks out and I become nauseous for hours. My classmates raved about it, though.

Zucchini with pesto. Hands down my favorite dish of the day. After being softened with sea salt, the zucchini had an al dente pasta texture that was absolutely incredible tossed with the pesto. Yum.

Filibert-date milk. I tried this in a glass that had some bleach in it from the washing process, which turned me off of it a lot. Kind of mad that I forgot to try it again in a new glass after lunch though, because the ingredients sounded heavenly together.

And finally, my creations: raw chocolate brownie cakes, made two ways.

One with just walnuts and dates processed together, then frosted with a coconut oil-agave-raspberry “frosting.”

And one with walnuts, dates and a few tablespoons of agave for extra sweetness.

Though I have the largest sweet tooth known to man, I actually preferred the first cake better! It was more of a pure chocolate lover’s cake, and to me, chocolate and all other sweets are two totally different beasts. The frosting was a total experiment, but it actually turned out perfectly, and I looooved the hot pink color. This would be a great dessert for a healthy girls’ night!

Have you ever had “raw” dishes or been to a raw restaurant? What did you think? What cooking methods do you prefer?