Raw Bento

I was a fan of nut-based dressings when I first went raw, but in the past few months, I have been leaning towards lighter ones with olive oil, herbs, garlic and/or ginger.

One of my current faves is raw honey mustard — without the honey. I finished a bottle of manuka honey (I used a non-active version so it wasn’t raw) and I was going to replace it but the price was quite prohibitive for something that I only use once or twice a month in my recipes. So, I decided I didn’t really need honey.

But, I still love making my mustard dressing with a sweet edge, so I replaced that component with dates. These days I use dates for sweetening most things as it is only 600JPY (USD7) for a large pack that lasts me two weeks.

The other sweetener I love is maple syrup. Though it isn’t raw, I still consider it a “whole food”, untouched by added chemicals or additives, so it’s really fine with me to use it. I did go through a couple of bottles of agave nectar but I found its flavour rather flat and I feel I had to use a lot of it to reach the level of sweetness I wanted.

Plus, there have been long-standing arguments against using too much agave. Not that I’m totally against it because I do consume it when I scoff down a raw bar every once in while. But the cost of using it in Japan is not practical (I have to order it online from the US) and doesn’t really serve my needs.

Back to the mustard dressing: here’s the recipe and it’s lovely on a bed of baby greens, red capsicum, baby tomatoes and dried cherries.

Recipe:
1 tsp yellow mustard seeds
4 dates
2 cloves garlic (one if you don’t like it too strong)
1 cup olive oil
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
Salt to taste
½ cup water