3 course Meal HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Patch]

My dad is having a party for his 80th birthday and my mother has done all the catering. She very kindly told me she has left it up to me to bring my own meals as I'm the only person that eats raw. I'm okay with that but I have to travel 7 hours to get there although I am going up 2 days before. But I have no idea what to take. I want to make an impression have people say WOW that looks great. Everything that looks incredible is either dehydrated or have ingredients I've never heard of. Coming from New Zealand we are bit limited in some of the foods and it's winter here as well. Anyone have some suggestions?

[jacsam]

I have a big cooler that I take when we travel....I really don't expect anyone to worry about food for me. To keep it cool, I have a large plastic container that used to have juice in it and I've filled it with water and frooze it. This way when the ice melts it doesn't pool water into the bottom of your cooler and it lasts several days. I always take stuff for green smoothies (for one meal), breakfast is usually fruit with a few nuts on top and then I'll take stuff for a couple different salads and you can make marinara ahead of time and just make your noodles when your ready to have it. You also can make the taco meat recipe and then you can make a taco salad or put it in greens to make burritos. I also like to take a dessert with me and a trail mix type of snack.

Recently I read about someone who takes with them, what they call their kitchen kit (has all the non parrishable items in it) then when they get where they're going they buy their fresh stuff. My husband calls my cooler "the lunchbox". I really like this kitchen kit idea much better. Good luck.

[Springtime]

Do they live very very far from a grocery store? If there's nowhere in the area where you can get fresh fruit/veg you really need to bring a lot of everything. But if you can get at least some things close to where you're going i suggest buying produce when you get there.

I never use a dehydrator, and i too live in a place without hard-to-get ingredients, so these are my thoughts on what you can have for dinner:

- Stuffed mushrooms (remove the stem from portobello (button) mushrooms. Stuff the hole with whatever you like, i have used sprouted hommus which was really tasty. But you could have tomato salsa, salad, nut pate or whatever in there.

- vegetable-peeler made zucchini noodles with tomato sauce. just keep peeling the zucchini and you'll have noodles. blend tomatoes, herbs, oil and maybe dried tomatoes, and you have sauce.

- fruit salad

- any kind of big salad with lots of favourite vegetables.

peace

[Mandy]

if you want really impressive food i'd check out, http://therawchefblog.com/. I just had a similar experience and made his Kale salad, his lasagna and Alissa's blueberry pie (i made it in cupcake shells tho so it was more portioned). Everyone was eager to try everything i'd made.

[jane b]

If you have access to a regular blender, bring some raw cashews with you for cashew creme. I just made some with a few frozen strawberries (you could use fresh) to pour over a fresh fruit salad like I would previously used yogurt. Totally yummy, and the biggest nuisance was keeping nonRaw DH out of it. Dish up the salad in individual bowls and pour a little of the creme over it.