Need a Great Dinner for Non-Raw Friends!

[agumble]

I went 100% raw about three months ago, and being in grad school, I've been extremely fortunate that my friends there have been completely supportive of my new lifestyle. Along with that, one of my friends is struggling with candida at the moment, and I don't think she's quite ready to switch to raw foods at the moment, but as she's watched me transition into it, I think she's starting to think of it as a possibility for her.

With that being said, right before we headed home for break, she suggested that I cook a raw-foods dinner for everyone when we get back to school so that everyone can see what these foods that I'm always raving about actually taste like. I really want to do this, and I feel like if I prepare a fantastic meal, my friend might be more willing to try raw foods to help her with her health problems.

So who has dinner recipes that rarely ever fail?? I usually prepare more snack-like foods rather than actual sit-down dinner meals, so I need some suggestions for a full dinner and dessert that would be sure to impress non-raw eaters. Plus I'm a little nervous because I prepared a raw pumpkin pie for Christmas since the last time I made it, it was amazing, but this time around it didn't turn out quite as well for some reason, and I don't really want that to happen again just because of something like a slight change in ingredient measurements! Any suggestions???

[raweater]

You can check my thread about the raw dinner I made for friends, it was a great success. I did a mexicain theme.

[Bobbie]

The Italian Dinner I posted last week was all recipes that are always a hit with raw-eaters but the pizza went wrong so I wouldn't recommend that.

For a fool-proof dinner for sad-eaters I would serve -
Jug of red grape juice with variety of chopped fruit soaking in it.
Pesto Mushrooms
Tomato Soup with Almond Bread
Lasagna
Joel's Chocolate Mousse Pie

For more appetizers I would do Alissa's ravioli with a different marinara as that usually is nice but sometimes something goes wrong and I don't like it. All the other marinaras I've tried are always good, so I would make one and serve it over ravioli and spaghetti, and under manicotti, and let people take tiny servings (one ravioli, one manicotti, a spoonful of spaghetti) as a starter.

If you don't have raw cacao, then icecream made by blending frozen bananas with pecans, coconut oil, a pinch of salt, is good. Add raspberries/blackberries with honey to make different flavours. Neapolitan Icecream looks really pretty.

Rawkinlocks peach cobbler is gorgeous. I made it with blackberry and apple for last Christmas, raspberry and apple for this Christmas. I prefer it with blackberry and sweeter apples. I serve it with the above icecream.
Although, this is nut heavy and I wouldn't want to serve it after the lasagna, because people will be full, so if you do a dinner with lots of nuts in the main course, I'd do a nut free dessert.

[ShelShel]

What is almond bread?