a wonderful recipe loosely based on one from a great book

There's a great vegan recipe book out called Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook. I've made several recipes from it and while some of the recipes are tofu- or seitan- heavy, all the recipes I've tried so far have been tasty and it's really nice to have a cookbook like this to make things to switch things up a bit in the food department. Tonight I had some zucchini and wanted to do something new with it so I did their zucchini fritter recipe. They suggested to make the cucumber dip to go with it and serve it with a salad. The dip recipe is a raw vegan recipe and I made it and it is VERY tasty. It goes without saying that when I make a recipe from a book, I change lots of things and I hardly ever do the recipe the way the book recommends. This recipe is no exception. Mainly I don't do the recipe as follows because I'm a rebel at heart and because I can't be bothered to do all the many steps that the recipe lists. I love making food, love being in the kitchen but I never want recipes to rule my time there. I just want to make the food and go. So even with the fritter recipe, I did it altogether differently and I changed many of the ingredients. I typically just use the ingredients as a guideline. LOL So here's the recipe. This can be found on page 66 of the Veganomicon book but please realize that I'm writing what I did so I don't forget for the next time. This would make an EXCELLENT dressing or sandwich spread as well as the dip that it suggests. It's creamy and smooth and very tasty.

• 1 euro cuke, cut in half and then chopped (I used a little more than 1/2 of the cuke)
• 1 cup raw cashews
• 2 super large cloves garlic
• 1 drizzle olive oil (I just drizzled)
• 1 tsp Italian seasoning
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 large drizzles of lemon juice
• good pinch of cayenne
• 2-3 sprigs of fresh dill

I just literally put everything into the VitaMix and blended until smooth and creamy. I didn't bother with grating and straining and whatever else they recommend. It would be nice to do if you were making it a chunky dip but this was such a creamy smooth and thick enough sauce that it just made the whole dinner so lovely. For dinner, we had:

• the zucchini fritters from page 51 of the book although I followed the directions even less than the above recipe. I didn't deep fry them either.
• lots of local greens which were washed, chopped and put in a bowl
• local carrots which were spiral sliced to look like carrot pasta
• sauerkraut that I made a long time ago from locally grown cabbage
• cucumber dip recipe from above

Here's how I put it all together: I put a whole bunch of lettuce on the plate, added some carrots, sauerkraut and added a fritter on top with a couple dollops of the dip. Everything tasted so good together. It was a great meal that was fast to make and easy to clean up. I'm excited to have leftovers! Enjoy and please let me know what if you make this or other recipes. I love to hear what people do in the kitchen. xoxo