Serving Up {Entree }: Whole Bowl

Portland is such a cool city for food!  Case in point - we are the city of food carts.  Seriously!  The last number I read was that Portland has over 200 food carts, and more are popping up everywhere!  Most of the food carts are organized into "pods" which are gatherings of food carts, usually in empty lots.  Upon my moving here last summer I took the train downtown to meet my sister-in-law at the public library and we went to a pod for lunch.  I looked to my SIL for direction since it is almost overwhelming to choose from so many options.  She directed me to the Whole Bowl and she changed my life :)

I knew she was onto something when the line for this food cart was two or three times longer than any other line in the pod.  It is truly nothing more than a rice bowl but the key ingredient is the sauce.  It's called Tali sauce, but it has nicknames including Yumm sauce and Crack (as in addicting) sauce.  I searched online to find a knockoff for the sauce and have been making our own "whole bowls" at home ever since.  I set it up buffet style and everyone creates their own bowl.  We have added meat before, just in case you can't imagine a meal not consisting of meat.  Let me just reiterate - it really doesn't matter what is in the bowl as long as it is all topped with a generous helping of the Tali sauce.  Yum!

WHOLE BOWL     Pin It
(recipe from here)
printable version

Brown rice

Red & black beans
Tali sauce
Salsa
Cheese
Avocado
Cilantro
Black olives
Sour Cream

Layer the desired ingredients in a bowl. Enjoy!

Tali Sauce:
1/4 cup Olive oil
1/4 cup Almonds (soaked)
2 Tbsp. Nutritional Yeast
1/4 cup Garbanzo Beans (soaked and cooked - I use canned)
1/4 cup Water
1/4 cup Lemon juice, fresh
1 clove of garlic
1/2 tsp. Sea salt
1 tsp. Curry powder
1 tsp. Cumin
1/2 tsp. Onion powder
2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard

Combine all the ingredients together in a blender until smooth and creamy.