Glow Food

Tanning Tomatoes

2011-11-27T01:48:00.001-07:00

Oh boy, look at me - too busy to write to you. You must have been starving since October 20th. Poor thing. It was a good pie though, wasn't it?

So this next food experience actually happened a long time ago... but I was pretty excited about it and I got rave reviews so I would like to share it with you.

My friend Kristen Stuart of Sacred Roots Yoga in Canmore held a fundraiser yoga class for the children at an orphanage in Peru that she was going to visit the following week. She asked Glowfood to help cater it, and I was stoked to help out!

What does one make for such an event? What would the kids in Peru demand? Something savory, obviously.
Remember all those nut butter stuffed fruit roll-ups that I made this summer for the market? I was thinking about those and it hit me like a ton of tomatoes - savory roll-ups - that's what I'll make!

So off to the over-priced specialty organics store I went to get really nice tomatoes and these other ingredients to make:

Tomato Herb Leather
6-7 large organic field tomatoes, seeded chopped. Place seeds in a fine sieve and drain juice into bowl. Add juice back into mixture, discard seeds.
1 small onion
a few sprigs of parsley, chopped
about 10 small basil leaves
a few sprigs of cilantro, chopped
3 tbsp olive oil
1 cup water
1 cup finely ground chia seeds
½ tsp sea salt
20 turns of a pepper mill

Put onion and tomato in food processor and puree.
Add the rest of the ingredients. process until well combined.
Taste for salt.

Take the leather off the dehydrator sheets and cut into equal squares or rectangles. Fairly small, maybe business card size? I can't remember to be honest. My pictures aren't telling the truth.
Spread on 3 dehydrator sheets and dry at 115 until dry to touch but not too dry that the leather is brittle.

Then I filled them with the most wonderful tarragon + green onion cashew cream, the recipe taken from Sarma's book Raw Food Real World (best raw book ever, get it!). Lots of cashews and nutritional yeast pureed in a food processor with lemon zest, lemon juice and sea salt into a fluffy and soft paste. Yum! Fold in fresh tarragon and green onion and any other herbs that tickle your tomato leather fancy.

Roll the leather around the cream and tie with a chive or piece of cilantro... or parsley...

Feed to people at a fundraiser.

Tart Tart

2011-10-20T04:39:00.000-06:00

I wanted to make a pie that I could eat for Thanksgiving. I'm learning more about proper food combining because my little guts still work over-time every day and I want to help them out as much as I can... we all know working over-time sucks. I also have to avoid as much sweet stuff as possible, so no dates, agave, or anything of the sweetener sort.

So fruit with fruit, and only fruit. Hmm, why then do nuts and fruit so often mingle? Why is trail mix so awesome and addictive? Um, Nature, WTF?

So I set out to make a nut-free pie crust. Is coconut a fruit? It is today.

Red Heart Plum Pie w. Coconut Lime Crust

Coconut Lime Crust:
2 cups of raw, shredded, dried coconut
3/4 cup melted coconut 'manna' or 'butter', you know, the product in the jar that is dried coconut made into a paste. I have tried to make this twice in my stone grinder, and both times it has turned out beautiful and silky, except for it is gray from some black oily sludge in the wheel well. Awesome. Artisana makes a nice coconut butter. Don't confuse this product with coconut oil. I probably would have tried to use some melted coconut oil in this recipe but both my gallons of coconut oil are 'off' so I was making do with what I had on hand.
2 teaspoons of fresh lime juice
3/4 teaspoon finely grated lime zest
a large pinch of Himalayan sea salt
1 tablespoon of lucuma powder
1/4 teaspoon of fresh ground vanilla beans

process all in a food processor with an 's' blade until it forms a wall. you may need to push the batter down and form a few walls to make sure all of the ingredients are stiff enough to go into the pie shell.

transfer most of the contents into a 9 inch pie shell with a removable bottom, or if you have a bigger pie shell you can use all of the crust mix. I just ate the extra in a bowl with a spoon (about 1/2 cup I left out so the crust wasn't crazy thick)

press the coconut mixture into the pie shell with the back of a spoon and make sure it is evenly distributed.
place in fridge or freezer to set.

Red Heart Plum Filling:
STEP 1:
2.5 oz irish moss (thoroughly rinse and then soak irish moss in clean water overnight in your fridge in an airtight container, then thoroughly shake excess water off before weighing)
put the irish moss in the high speed blender and break it up into small pieces. i did this so that when i blended everything together it wouldn't take extra long to break down the moss and the mixture wouldn't heat up.
take the irish moss bits out of the blender and put to the side in a bowl.

STEP 2:
8 red heart plums, halved and pitted
blend in a high speed blender to puree. the skins are a tad bitter, take them off and discard if you want before blending, but I didn't.

add: 1/4 cup of fresh lime juice
3/4 tsp or so of fresh lime zest
1/4 tsp vanilla bean
3-4 drops of liquid stevia
the broken down irish moss from step 1
blend on high in a high speed blender until totally smooth, but make sure it stays pretty cool.

STEP 3:
5-6 red heart plums, halved, pitted and quartered
place the plums in the bottom of the coconut pie crust and sprinkle with a few pinches of lime zest.
pour the plum puree evenly over top, cover and place in fridge to set for a few hours or overnight.

Did I like it?
I ate the whole pie. It wasn't in one sitting though, it was in 2 sittings. The first sitting I had 2 slices.

I would, however, recommend for anyone who doesn't have sugar issues to add some agave to the plum puree to make it a bit more palatable for the sweet-tooth.
It could also do with a touch more irish moss, my measurements were a guess based on a recipe in a Cafe Gratitude book of liquid vs. moss in lemon meringue pie. Also, I didn't want to risk the pie tasting like irish moss. It smells like mothballs sometimes but it magically never ends up altering the taste of any dish. yay!
If you want to combine fruit and nuts and don't care about happy guts then I bet an orange zest cashew cream would be pretty killer on top of this!

Twice the Fun w. Pumpkun

2011-09-11T13:05:00.008-06:00

Hey Gang,
Feel like making pumpkin seed 'parmesan'?
You know... I don't think I made this recipe up, but I don't know where I got it, it was in my word doc recipes, which means I typed it out, which means that perhaps I made it up, I'm sure it was a take on someone's recipe for some sort of nut cheese.

Anyway, I just made tons of this stuff because I received 5lbs of really beautiful pumpkin seeds from the pumpkin seed pusher. The pictures don't do them justice, they are very dark green, and this is after being soaked!

So soak some pumpkin seeds for about 8 hours and rinse thoroughly. Now, I just stuck them all in the dehydrator at 105 for about 10 hours, but that is because I didn't want to use the food processor at 2am to make the parm - so you can take it from here or you can use dried seeds like me. The difference will be a coarser texture in the final product with the dry seeds. I like texture.

Pumpkin Seed Parmesan
1 cup pumpkin seeds - soaked
1/4 cup water (or more if the seeds are dry)
1/8 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
1/4 teaspoon sea salt or more to taste
1/2 serrano chili or jalapeno, chopped (optional but adds better flavour)

In a food processor, blend all the ingredients until fairly smooth. Thinly spread onto paraflex sheet and dehydrate at 105F for about 6-8 hours. Flip and remove the paraflex. Dehydrate until totally dry. Break into pieces and store air-tight.

So this is where things get crazy... My friends Sara and Reno from One Love Yoga in Vancouver http://oneloveyoga.ca/ were visiting a few weeks ago and asked me if I'd ever tried putting my cracker batters on nori sheets. "Well no, in fact I have not (I said), but that sounds awesome!".

So I had a little bit of this pumpkin seed parm left over in the food processor and I chopped up:
one large green zucchini, peel on
one small onion, peel off
a handful of baby dill including stalks/stems
1/2 of a jalapeno, seeded
and threw in some:
sea salt
pumpkin seeds
juice of 1 lemon
about 1 tbsp of nutritional yeast or more

and I blended it all in the food processor until it was combined but still chunky.
I chucked down some raw nori sheets on the paraflex dehydrator sheets and spread the mixture evenly onto 6 of the nori sheets (2 nori fit on one dehydrator sheet).

I let it dehydrate overnight at 105 and they were very crispy in the morning. Curled up a bit. I like this idea of using nori, not only because it tastes good and is healthy, but also because I didn't have to use a binder such as chia seeds, and that is a nice change because I always use chia seeds.

So anyway, they are kind of like dill pickle chips from the sea. SEA PICKLES. Pretty fun. Thanks SJ and Reno for the idea.

Peaches & Cream Pie

2011-08-18T14:37:00.012-06:00

Oh gosh, that is a mighty fine peach - suited for a pie I think. Yes, Peaches and cream pie.

First, you'll need to make a nut crust.
Use almonds, walnuts, coconut flakes, coconut oil, dates soaked in fresh orange juice and himalayan sea salt. Process the nuts in the food processor until fine with little chunks, but not too many little chunks. Take the nuts out and place the soaked dates in the processor. Process into a paste. Add the rest of the ingredients, including the processed nuts back into the processor. Pulse until a nice thick dough is formed. As for the measurements... use about 2 cups or more of nuts, about 5-6 dates, a few hand-fulls of coconut shreds, a few pinches of salt, and few tablespoons of coconut oil, or up to 1/4 cup. Adjust from there, you don't want it to be too dry or too wet, but easy to spread/press into containers. It will solidify fully in the fridge. There are many raw nut crust recipes out there, if this scares you, you might want to look one up and use accurate measurements. The second time I made this pie for the market I omitted the dates and o.j. (dates are too sweet for me) and substituted fresh peach to make it wet and added a bit more coconut oil so it would be solid when cold. I got that idea from when I make instant macaroons I add fresh strawberries as a binder sometimes. Lots of fun ways to experiment here.

Press into a big tart shell or into individual sized containers. Place in fridge for a bit to harden.

Then you will need to make the Coconut Vanilla Cream.
1 cup raw cashews, soaked
1 cup young coconut meat
seeds from a vanilla pod
about 1 tbsp lucuma powder
1/4 cup agave nectar or more to taste (you can add a couple of drops of liquid stevia as well if you want to use less agave)
a few pinches of sea salt
1/2 cup coconut oil, warmed to liquefy
possibly some water, if you find the mixture too thick. You want a nice pourable cream that will solidify in the fridge.
Blend all of these things in a high speed blender until very creamy and smooth.

Pour onto crust and if using individual serving dishes, pour even amounts into the dishes, about 1/2 inch thick, or whatever you like. Place in fridge again to solidify. Freezer if you are in a time crunch, but don't allow to freeze.

Last step - Peach Puree
Pretty easy stuff here for the last part. Wash some organic peaches, squeeze a bit of fresh lemon, zest a bit of fresh lemon, add agave to taste. I think I used about 5-6 peaches, maybe 1 or 2 tbsp lemon juice, 1/2 tsp lemon zest and about 1-2 tbsp agave. Blend in a food processor or hand blender until pretty smooth and spread on top of the coconut cream. Place back in the fridge, covered, for few hours and then serve!

I made this twice for the farmer's market. B.C. peaches are in full season right now so this pie is so nice and summery.

Here are some other things I've been up to for the market:
Honey Mustard Parsnip Chips

Hickory Smoked Eggplant Bacon

Transgingers (ginger cinnamon) dark chocolate

Smoked Chocolate Bark

Mocha Body Scrub

and I've been selling my friend Andrew's Smoked Salts, yum!

One market left people! Hope to see you there next week.

Something Quick to Tide You Over

2011-08-06T11:23:00.004-06:00

I had a bunch of fruit to use up this morning but I didn't want to run the risk of elevating my blood sugar too much (for me this means itchy skin and rashes) so I came up with this bizarre concoction that is full of protein to balance the sugars and actually tastes pretty great!

I had one realllly ripe banana and I threw it in the blender with the rest of my hemp protein (about 1/4 cup), threw in some true cinnamon which also helps balance blood sugar (about 1 tsp), a handful of raw hazelnuts, a dash of water to get the mixture blending, about 3/4 tsp ground vanilla beans and a couple drops of vanilla liquid stevia.
I blended this to a nice thick paste.

In a bowl I put:
a handful of hazelnuts
a handful of cocoa nibs
a handful of raw shredded coconut
a handful of fresh blueberries
a handful of gogi berries
2 small fresh apricots, cut into chunks

Then I poured the banana goo over top and I'm eating it right now.

There was a lot of energy in this breakfast because I just left this post open and ran around the house and cleaned up before returning to finish writing...

Anyway, just something quick to tide you over before I tell you how I made the Peaches + Cream Pie.

Third Time's A Primavera

2011-07-27T23:51:00.006-06:00

Ok so it's not spring (primavera), but it sure felt like it today. Maybe it was borderline November, but I like spring better, and the vegetables right now are more liken to spring. I think the bears are still starving, I saw one at the market today busking for berries but his rendition of Hamlet was closer to Edward Scissor Hands so he wasn't making much coin. Yes - I'm complaining about the weather on my food blog.

Despite the cold rain, the market was once again super awesome and it inspired me to make a raw pasta primavera for dinner. Check it out cold cats:

As usual, the measurements are anyone's guess... mostly my guess.
White Sauce:
1.5 cups truly raw cashews, soaked for an hour or so to soften
the juice from a few stalks of celery (run some celery through a juicer, use about 1/4 cup of the juice)
a splash or 2 of chardy, or any white wine you might be drinking to warm up
one very small shallot (about a tablespoon finely chopped worth)
a dash of fresh lemon juice and a wide thumbnail sized piece of lemon rind
lots of himalayan sea salt to taste
a dash of fresh ground pepper

Blend all these things in a high speed blender with some of the cashew soaking water until it is creamy, medium thickness. I made mine a bit thinner than I normally would have but it worked out nicely - the dish was fresh and summe- er.. springy.

The Rest:
one gigantic yellow zucchini (check the size of this, bigger than my forearm!) shaved with a veg peeler or made into your fave style of noodle if you have a spiral slicer (personally, I give up on my spiral slicer, it kind of sucks). don't use the middle with the seeds, it doesn't make very sturdy noodles.

Place the shaved zucchini in a colander, sprinkle with plenty of sea salt and toss. Let sit for half of an hour. Squeeze the moisture out of the zucchini noodles by grabbing a handful and, well, squeezing.

Thinly slice some white onion, bell pepper and halve some grape tomatoes. Toss with olive oil and sea salt and place on a dehydrator screen for about an hour at 115 or so. If you go higher in temperature for an hour (about 145 degrees), apparently it won't heat the food up but will dry it faster so go nuts. Doesn't this photo look like a bad 80's photo from a sandwich counter in a food court?

The Assembly:
oh I forgot, shuck some fresh peas that you just bought at the market. A few handfuls will do.
place the squeezed noodles, peas and some of the cashew cream sauce in a bowl and toss well to coat. Put it onto some plates and add the rest of the 'wilted' dehydrator vegetables. Garnish with something nice like an oregano leaf, or kale chips, or both.
Don't forget more fresh pepper.

If you have truffle oil, this would probably be a good time to use it - just thought of that - post meal of course. I love truffle oil.

If you have other nice fresh veg on hand like asparagus add it to your wilted veg pile.

Yum!

As for the market, I turned to my friend and said 'you know, I could be happy just designing chocolate labels forever' - and I was serious. I was up till 4am because I forgot that my 2 new white chocolate flavours (lavender peach & wintergreen vanilla) needed labels. I wonder if I wasn't so delirious at 4am if I would have thought of such great titles. If you are wondering, the 'clean' in the 'peachy clean' comes from lavender being often referred to as something people would use in the shower, not in the kitchen - just in case my 4am wit outsmarted anyone. Does anyone know the inspiration for 'A Midwinter's White Cream'?

I will post the Peaches & Cream Pie recipe soon, it sold out today, first time I've ever made it - stoked!

Also, if you need to email me: julie@lookcreative.ca

Fin.

Sweet Seconds

2011-07-23T01:18:00.000-06:00

Sweet Seconds fo sho! Number two farmer's market was truly a raw success. I sold out of wraps, crackers and fruit rolls by about 1pm!
You know... it really makes me happy to feed people and make them happy... is that lame? I'm glad I can introduce raw food to people who eat a standard american diet and they don't turn their nose up and say "ugh why would I want to eat that", they say "wow, I'll take another one of those".

I'm not trying to convert people, just trying to make people realize that real food can be some of the best stuff ever. I'm not crazy for eating the way I do, I swear (%$^&).

So many friends, after trying my food have said "you know, when I think about what you eat I think you must have the most bland food on the planet, but now that I've tried your food, it's awesome!" - and I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, that would be weird, maybe I'm just happy that I'm not actually crazy, and I don't have defective taste buds.

A couple of cool things happened this week at the market. A 'chocolate fanatic' lady who was hesitant to buy my dark chocolate last week because it is $6/bar broke down and got one. This week she came back and said "I lost 10 mins of my life last week because I was in heaven, that is the best chocolate I've ever had in my life!" How awesome is that?!
The second thing is a couple of raw food eaters from Canmore came and bought some wraps, crackers, fruit rolls and chocolate and went off into the park. They came back about a half hour later and bought the rest of my wraps, fruit rolls and some more crackers and chocolate! They were so nice and I'm glad I could feed them.

I'm in full production mode right now, making lots more so hopefully I don't sell out mid-day next week.

Let me tell you a little about my food this week:
The fruit rolls were banana cinnamon w/ B.C. hazelnut and raw cocoa filling, apple strawberry orange w/ raw almond vanilla nut butter and B.C. cherry and cantaloupe w/ the same almond vanilla butter. Deadly good.

The wraps were the same and I also made my fave BBQ tomato & onion crackers. In an effort not to waste any of my pre-printed labels I ended up having the same graphics on the wraps label and the crackers label, how embarrassing haha, I changed the colours slightly but didn't have time to draw a new label for the mango onion wraps. Are you sleeping yet? Picture time.

I made a new body scrub with vanilla beans and spearmint + peppermint essential oils, I was really stoked on the package for this one. I drew a mint leaf, duplicated it and then drew a vanilla bean. I stuck the vanilla bean in the middle and blam, I had an unintentional butterfly. How girly. I love it.

The same blueberry rooibos 'blue suede brew' white chocolate was there and the 'some like it hot' chipotle cinnamon dark chocolate made an appearance.

I made pretty signs to draw more attention to the items on the table and to educate peeps about my stuff...

Ok so no recipe this week but next week I'll have some new things and will post a recipe. I can't give all my secrets away! Very exciting news though: I found a source for frozen ORGANIC young coconut meat in Vancouver and they do overnight shipping! I'm getting some shipped Monday- holy crap if you could see the smile on my face right now. Imagine all the possibilities...

Thanks for your support Banff & beyond, you're awesome!

Marketed

2011-07-14T12:37:00.008-06:00

Hey Banff & Beyond,
I'm here to write about my super fun first day at the Banff Farmer's Market yesterday.

Remember I was complaining about the heavens trying everything in their power to make sure this is a bumpy ride? Well they did continue along that path (so like the heavens to stick to a path). I didn't get my cocoa butter and other ingredients until Monday night and packaging and nuts until Tuesday night! However, it turns out that if you politely tell the heavens that their path is a crappy path they will back down and things will work out. I think they were just happy to hear the dehydrator buzz die down.

After countless hours of designing labels, dehydrating, blending, mixing and singing along with Joel Plaskett I managed to get everthing done. Here are the results of my heavenly defiance.

3 fruit roll-ups with wild jungle peanut butter in the middle.

Banana Cinnamon Rolls
a whole bunch of bananas
vanilla bean powder/fresh vanilla beans
true cinnamon
blend all in food processor and spread on teflex, not too think but not too thin and dehydrate at 105 until dry and still plyable.
cut into 4-5 strips and cut those strips in half width wise.

Strawberry Apple Orange Rolls
Do the same as above, with 5 apples and 1lb of strawberries, 2 tbsp of ground chia seeds, vanilla bean and the zest of one orange.

Raspberry Pear Rolls
6 Pears, 1 pint of raspberries, 2 tbsp of chia seeds, vanilla bean, 2 drops of liquid stevia and lemon zest.
Do the same as the the previous 2 with dehydrating.

Jungle Peanut Butter
a couple cups of jungle peanuts, ground in a food processor till fine. Put them in a high speed blender with a touch of sea salt, agave nectar and melted coconut oil as needed to help it become smooth. If the butter starts to get too warm then stop blending and put it in a bowl in the freezer and try again when it has cooled. You don't want to heat the nut butter above raw!

When the fruit is finished dehydrating and you've cut it into strips then place some peanut butter on one side, spread out with a knife and make sure to keep most of it away from the edges. Roll fairly tightly and it will self-seal with the nut butter on the end.

I also made:
Orange Coffee Dark Chocolate + Wild Canadian Blueberry Rooibos White Chocolate

The checkered wrappers were supposed to be plain neutral but they were out of stock and I needed them ASAP. I think it looks kind of fun though. It will have to do because I have 2000 sheets of the stuff.

Grainy + Honey Mustards - so spicy

Onion + Mango Vegetable Wraps (w. Glen's Fruit Truck organic patty pan zucchini squash). These were the star of the show, they sold out! Looks like I'll be making more for next week.

Ylang-Ylang Essential Oil Body Scrub

Pumpkin-Less Pudding (seen on the right)

Overall I think the market was a success (in your face heavenly forces).

FYI all of my packaging is biodegradable and compostable! (minus the tape to attach them)

See you next week. I plan on having different flavours of chocolate and fruit rolls and some new goodies!

xo
Julie

Market Me

2011-07-03T13:21:00.004-06:00

Hey fellow food eaters!
It is finally summer here in Banff and I'm getting really excited for the farmer's market that I will be a part of. Too bad the town, the health board and the cosmos are doing everything in their power to ensure it is a bumpy ride.
The market isn't a 'certified farmer's market' just yet so all food has to be made in a commercial kitchen, and if you want to give samples of your food you have to spend tons of money on containers that have lids and you need a hand washing station... so much for a simple market. Reminds me of life these days... helmet wearing laws for bikes and skateboards - our impossibly bubble-wrapped society. C'mon people, live a little, eat some food that has been created in your neighbors kitchen! If we lived in Cuba all we would have to do to get the flies off and sanitize would be to splash a little rum on the food. Then again the Cubans are just getting into cell phones so what do they know...

All bitching aside, I am looking forward to this. I have a bunch of things I want to make but am open to suggestions as well. Eventually I will be making my own stone-ground nut butters + raw nutella-type spreads, chocolate, mustards, coconut butters, etc., but the stone grinder I just bought and brought back from San Francisco this week broke on the plane so I have to wait for the airline to replace it. Luckily I'm really extra smart and know how to make chocolate and mustard sans stone grinder.

I think I will also make my favorite BBQ crackers

perhaps some 'green chips'

maybe some seasoned raw nuts like sour cream and onion almondspumpkin pudding/pie and maybe simple things like fruit leathers. Any suggestions?

I won't be selling glowfood at this upcoming week's market (July 6th) but I will be at the following one.

See you soon!

Judgement Salad

2011-05-20T23:54:00.004-06:00

Don't judge me because I'm posting another salad recipe. I bet if David Wolfe were to judge this salad he would say 'that is one hell of a beautifying salad, tastes like I'm going to beauty heaven'...

Have you ever read his book 'Eating for Beauty'? In this book he tells us this about today's salad components:

Arugula: Highly alkaline, high in beta-carotene (Vit A) protecting the nucleus of cells from radiation (sun, etc), helps inhibit acne. Anti-cancer, antibiotic and anti-viral. Also, because of it's high sulfur content it is an excellent internal skin cleanser and liver purifier.

Olives (olive oil): Most beautifying foods of all! Erase fine lines, repair connective tissue, heal the circulatory system, soothing digestive system, alkaline, crazy high in vit E, high protein, smooths skin and stimulates immune system, among other things.

Onions: High sulfur (cleanses skin + liver, antiseptic properties, helps build all connective tissues), anti blood clumping properties, mucous disintegration, has more vit C than same sized orange and tons of other minerals and vitamins.

Papaya Seeds: Amazing anti-parasite to guard against and flush out parasites. The flesh of papaya has tons of different health properties. Note that these have a strong peppery taste, quite spicy.

Tumeric: Antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, anti-microbial, first-class blood purifier resulting in wounds healing faster, increased energy + metabolism. Makes the skin soft and counteracts pimples, acne, boils + other skin imbalances.

Avocado: Eye health, Vit E, anti-cancer, makes things like arugula + onions more digestible, promotes healthy heart and lowers bad cholesterol, among other things.

So I thought to myself... I'd like to be the most beautiful person at work today. I'm going to make a salad. (Truth be told, I just made this with what I had on hand but it worked out beautifully).

Judgement Salad:

Salad Part:
A bunch of organic arugula. Fill a big metal bowl, don't be shy! I was lucky enough to get some from Calgary this week, hotchkiss farms grows fantastic arugula.
1 small onion, sliced into small slivers, as much as you want.
1/2 or whole avocado, sliced in half, then into chunks while in the shell and scooped out.

Candied Mustard Mushrooms
Make some mustard according to my mustard mushrooms post last November, or any mustard you want, usually I just throw mustard seeds, onion, white wine, raw cider vinegar, raw honey, sea salt, pepper and maybe some tumeric into a blender until smooth. Then I coat sliced mushrooms (your choice, I like crimini) in the mustard and dehydrate at 115 degrees for a bunch of hours (maybe 4+). Then when they are slightly shriveled I coat them in a mixture of olive oil (lots of olive oil), sea salt and raw honey and dehydrate until dry. They should have the texture some sort of leather or easy to chew jerky.

Dressing: Spicy Papaya Seed
Seeds from about half of a small papaya, never hurts to have a bit of flesh in there too for extra sweetness
about 1/4 of a small onion or 1/2 of a large shallot
1/2 large organic lemon or whole small lemon (not just the juice, the whole thing!), chopped
a splash or two of raw cider vinegar
a hefty dash of sea salt, to taste
about 1/6 cup or less of olive oil
a small bit of fresh tumeric, optional (to be honest I can't remember if I used tumeric, I had a ton of fresh tumeric on my counter so I probably did).
Blend all in a vita mix until smooth. It won't be crazy smooth but that is ok. Taste it. If it is too spicy or weird add some raw honey or papaya flesh.

Coat the arugula and onion in the dressing and top the salad with the mushrooms and avocado.

Sure, this might sound weird, but I swear it was good. It made me feel good too.

Now if only I could get some beauty sleep.

Kraut Salat

2011-04-29T21:44:00.004-06:00

Ok so you might find this meal incredibly strange or boring or just straight up gross. Well, I have great news for you - you don't have to make it! Phew, right?

I have run out of precious cooking (uncooking) time lately and all of my creative efforts are spent on making logos and pretty posters. Aside from many smoothies I keep coming back to one quick and simple salad. Perhaps because of my European roots or maybe because I'm preparing for a German invasion of the WURST kind (German restaurant opening soon), I've been crazy about kraut.

Lets call this Kraut Salat.
As much mixed lettuce as you want, or romaine, baby romaine, spring mix... u get the point.
A few forkfuls of raw, unpasteurized sauerkraut (you can even get some with carrots and ginger or caraway seeds - what a party!)
very finely sliced onion of your choice (however much you want)
A handful of sunflower seeds
A few pinches of raw sesame seeds
A few hefty pinches of pink sea salt
Lots of freshly ground back pepper
...and the magic ingredient... Highwood Crossing Organic Extra Virgin Canola Oil.
This oil is like liquid gold, strong nutty flavour, rich deep yellow colour, grown and made here in Alberta! It is very much unlike any canola oil you've ever had, mainly because it has FLAVOUR! I know there is a lot of bad press about canola, but I feel good about this one. Organic, unrefined...anyway...

Mix it all together und essen.

They Say It's Your Birthday

2011-04-06T00:51:00.005-06:00

Happy Birthday!
I made a cake for you. Aren't you excited to look at the pretty pictures?

Normally I only write about recipes that I make up, but when it comes to birthdays you have to surprise people - SURPRISE - I didn't make this recipe up!

The recipe comes to us from Sarma Melngailis' book Living Raw Food. I changed a couple of things but I still don't think I should post the recipe, cause it ain't mine.

It is 'Milk Chocolate Mousse Layer Cake', and it is freaking awesome. The mousse part calls for 1 cup of young coconut meat, and I didn't have time to drive an hour away to get coconuts so I replaced it with about 1/4 - 1/3 cup melted cocoa butter. I knew this would make it more stiff and would give it a bit of a white chocolate flavour. Turns out it was a great idea!

The original recipe has the cake in a square/rectangle shape but I like round birthday cakes so I did just that - made three separate rounds in the dehydrator. I also thought it needed icing to make it look like I made it, not my cross-eyed cat Eddie. I melted about a pint of 'so delicious' brand vanilla coconut based ice cream and about 1/3 cup or so of raw 'artisana' brand coconut cream and added vanilla bean scrapings and some agave and blended it all together to make a random, quick and easy icing. I would have made a truly raw icing with cashews except I used them all up in the mousse part of the cake... plan ahead people, plan ahead.

Mixing wet + dry ingredients, mostly almonds and walnuts in different forms, raw cocoa powder and maple syrup.

Spreading the batter into 3 rounds on parchment-lined round metal things I borrowed from work...

After about 20-22 hours of dehydrator time the cake batter was fudgy cake. I flipped one upside down and spread 1/2 of the mousse on top. (Mousse was mostly cashews, agave, cocoa powder + cocoa butter...)

Put another cake layer on top, the rest of the mousse and then the final cake layer. Oh yea, saved some mousse for filling in the gaps. I eye-balled the rounds so I did a little trimming once everything was in place.

I added one layer of icing, let it drip all over, put the cake in the freezer for 20 mins and then poured a second layer on. Great technique. Topped it all off with some shaved cocoa butter and a few flicks of cocoa powder and popped it in the fridge for a couple of hours.

This cake was very easy to make, you just need a dehydrator, a high speed blender (like a Vita Mix) and time to plan ahead.

Thanks for the recipe Pure Food and Wine, the birthday boy was very happy!

(Also very excited - a friend is visiting NY and I told her to go to PF+W and One Lucky Duck and bring me back some goodies!)

Tocino Crudo Mexicano

2011-03-14T01:23:00.005-06:00

Have you ever felt like your body is self-destructing? I feel like that right now. Sitting in front of my computer(s) inside all day makes me crave fatty foods and loathe exercise or any movement requiring more exertion than going to the fridge 6 feet away.

Basking in my slothfulness I have invented a cashew cream that tastes like bacon. Why, you ask? Well, it wasn't on purpose, but isn't that how awesome things get invented (the popsicle, the post-it-note, oxygen)?

I wanted to make little guacamole stuffed endive leaves topped with walnut taco meat and finished with smoked cashew cream (fat Mexicans, can we call them that?). Yes we can.

Fat Mexicans

5-6 endives, larger/med leaves torn off + washed.

Guacamole: mushed avocados, lots of fresh lime juice, finely diced white or red onion, finely chopped tomatoes, handful or 2 chopped fresh cilantro leaves, finely diced jalapeno pepper, sea salt, pepper. Mix all together in a bowl and taste for salt, lime and spice.

Walnut Taco Meat: 1.5 cups walnuts (preferably soaked overnight then dried in dehydrator for 48 hours, but whatever) pulsed in a food processor until crumbly and resembling the texture of cooked ground beef.
Take out of food processor and mix in 1.5 tsp ground cumin and 3/4 tsp ground coriander and 2 tsp braggs liquid aminos or your fave soy sauce/tamari.

Bacon Cashew Cream: 1 cup cashews, 1-2 tbsp lapsang souchong smoked black tea steeped in 1/2 cup hot water until very dark (maybe about 20 mins), 1/4-1/2 small green serrano chili, a fingernail sized slice of fresh turmeric, a few hefty pinches of sea salt and to be honest, I can't remember if I put a touch of white onion or anything else in. Start without onion. Place cashews, chili, salt, turmeric, and 1/4 cup of the smoked tea (water not leaves) in the high speed blender (if you don't have a high speed blender maybe soak the cashews in the smoked tea for an hour after the tea has cooled). Blend the crap out of it until it is a smooth cream, adding more tea water until really smooth but still quite thick.

Mexican Assembly Line: Lay out the endive, fill each leaf with guacamole, spoon walnut taco meat on top and press in a bit so it doesn't fall off, top with a glob of bacon cream. Stuff your fat Mexican face!

Quick! 101

2011-02-18T13:03:00.005-07:00

Hola!
Last night I was happy to find a very quick and easy recipe for raw chili on uncooking101.com.
http://uncooking101.com/site/raw-food-recipe/chili-con-corn/
It was fantastic! Flavourful, fresh, exciting and most of all, quick!

This has inspired me to post the very quick raw parsnip apple soup I whipped up the other day. I forgot to take a pic of the final product but you can imagine it looked like a bowl of white soup.

Instant Parsnip Apple Soup

3 large organic parsnips, peeled and roughly chopped
1 sweet organic fuji apple, core removed and chopped, skin on
a little bit of white onion, maybe 1/4 or 1/6 of a medium onion
1 cup home made almond milk (4 cups spring water, 1 cup almonds, blend, nut milk bag strain)
a touch of coconut oil, maybe 1 teaspoon, more if you want
some spring water, as much as it takes to get everything flowing but not to dilute too much
2 hefty pinches sea salt

Put everything in a vita mix blender and blend until smooth, adding more water as needed and taste for salt and stuff.

(I can't remember if I put a touch of fresh lemon juice in here, I don't think I did but if you feel the soup 'needs something' try a tiny squeeze

Not going to lie, I had made some almond milk earlier that morning and added a bit of vanilla bean to it, so if you are feeling adventurous add about 1/16 - 1/8 tsp of vanilla bean powder to your soup.

Let me know what you think!

For Cookie Lovers

2011-02-04T18:00:00.005-07:00

If you don't like cookies, you can leave. Right now. Go.

Hello cookie lovers!
It has been quite some time since my last post. I've been adventuring in Costa Rica and over the past two weeks since I've been home I have been non-stop graphic designing. I have barely had time to cook for myself! (not complaining, just making blog absence excuses).

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season with fantastic food and full bellies. While I was in Costa Rica I had about 4 coconuts a day, and it was awesome. I also ate many papayas, pineapples, cocoa nibs (visited a chocolate farm!) and perfectly ripe avocados. Um, heaven.

This post has nothing to do with the food I made while in CR but I did make a couple of fun meals down there so I'll devote another post to that later.

Sitting at a computer desk (er kitchen table) doing work all day can make you a bit sluggish, so I decided to re-enter the dehydrator world with some chocolate cookies to add some zip to my design. I just started throwing ingredients together that I thought might make a decent cookie.

Chocolate Lucuma Cookies:

1 cup raw coconut flour
2 tbsp lucuma powder
3 tbsp raw cocoa powder
1/8 tea sea salt
¼ cup + 1 tbsp raw almond butter (I used the awesome Artisana brand butter)
1 tbsp raw coconut syrup (sub agave or other sweetener)
1/8 cup coconut oil, melted (be careful not to heat too much)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 drops plain liquid stevia
2 tbsp ground chia seeds
9-13 tbsp spring water
1 teaspoon cider vinegar

Mix together dry ingredients

Mix together wet ingredients except water

Add all to food processor and mix until it forms a big ball of dough, adding the water one tablespoon at a time until the dough sticks together and forms that ball.

Break off pieces and roll into small balls in your palm and flatten with bottom of cup that has been dipped in water so it doesn’t stick.

Lightly press cashews, cocoa nibs or something else (like goji berries, walnuts, etc) into the top of each cookie.

Dehydrate on teflex sheet at 115 until dry. You can also leave a bit moist in the middle if you want a softer cookie. Overnight should be just fine.

I then whipped up a quick batch of chocolate to coat the cookies in. I didn't really measure anything but basically I added equal parts melted cocoa butter and raw cocoa powder with some vanilla, powdered sea salt, coconut syrup, liquid stevia and some flavour in the form of essential oils. I separated the chocolate into 3 parts, adding lavender essential oil to one, orange to another and kept one plain.
I coated the cashew topped cookies in the lavender chocolate, the plain cookies in the orange oil chocolate and the cocoa nib topped cookies in the plain chocolate. What fun!

I then placed the cookies in the freezer until the chocolate was set (less than half hour) and then put them in a covered container on the counter. I know they won't last long in this house, but if you aren't going to eat them all in a couple days, you might want to put them in the fridge (or if you live somewhere warm, put them in the fridge).

I will say that my first batch of raw cookies turned out pretty good. Yay raw cookies!

Julie and the Chocolate Factory

2010-12-31T01:44:00.007-07:00

Happy Holidays to you all! I am going to share with you all of the hard work I put into Christmas gifts for family and friends this year.

I refuse to take it easy and do one thing at a time, so amongst all of the other holiday madness, designing two new menus for my place of work and doing multiple other design projects, I decided to open a temporary chocolate factory in my ant-sized kitchen. What fun!

I will admit that I started designing the labels back in November. So smart. I went to Calgary to Mona Lisa art store and got some pretty fun semi-transparent velum paper and some craft/postal parcel paper. Went to Nu-Roots in Canmore and got chocolate foils and all of my raw chocolate ingredients (cocoa butter, cocoa powder, cashews, essential oils, chocolate molds, etc.) and to a new artisan grocer across the road called Feast to get lovely vanilla beans.

I decided on the 4 flavours:
2 white - Lemon and Blueberry Rooibos
2 Dark - Cinnamon Chipotle and Orange Coffee

I love old movies (and some modern movies too) so I gave each bar a special movie theme name. I guess I started with the Lemon White Chocolate- I wanted to call it "Jack Lemon" (like the actor) and the other bars followed suit. I sent the wrapper files up to the printing company in town and got them to print on the special velum paper.

After writing down who was to get the chocolates and how many, I was suddenly seeing 60-80 bars in my future! Did I mention that my freezer is smaller than any normal freezer and can only fit two three-bar molds at a time? No big deal.

Happily making chocolate, I realized I would need more cocoa butter from Canmore. I drove in, only to find out that Nu-Roots was totally out, as was Nutters, and there would likely be some coming in AFTER Christmas! Oh crap! Chocolate factory halted.

The week before Christmas I happened to call my friend Brooke who was going to Nu-Roots and asked her to keep an eye out for cocoa butter. By some Christmas miracle they had just received a new order of cocoa butter and it wasn't even on the shelves yet! (insert that sound the heavens make when they part and the sun bursts through). Chocolate factory commence.
Part 1: Melt + mix ingredients, pour into molds, freeze, pop out of molds, put back in freezer with like-flavoured bars.
Part 2: Foil wrap each bar, craft paper wrap each bar, label each bar, seal each bar with wax. The only downfall of the process was that I had to use scotch tape to seal the craft paper - how amateur.

This is the final product, after many hours of hard work, blood, sweat and sealing wax. (No blood or sweat contaminated the chocolate, but the odd cat hair may have).

Jack Lemon

Some Like it Hot

Orange Mocha Frappuccino!

Blue Suede Brew

(upside down on foil)

Julie's Chocolate Factory is temporarily closed for a two week vacation in Costa Rica!

Caesar was a Jerk with Great Taste Buds

2010-12-06T16:57:00.004-07:00

I've been watching a few movies over the last couple of months concerning the fall of Rome. My those Roman's were a passionate and brutal bunch! I have been inspired to make a raw vegan Caesar salad (the orgies and disemboweling really made me hungry).

At the place I work we have a fantastic pink peppercorn based Caesar dressing and I wanted to replicate that minus the eggs, anchovies and garlic. Sounds lame doesn't it? Well... it's not!

Pink Peppercorn Caesar

The Dressing:
1 cup cashews
1 tbsp dulse, packed (to replicate anchovy flavour)
1/6 onion
1/8 cup olive oil
juice from 2 lemons, more than ¼ cup, less than ½ cup (ghetto measurements)
3 teaspoons hemp seeds (to add creaminess and an egg-ish taste)
6 wild pepper peppercorns
½ cup water
1 teaspoon pink peppercorns
1 teaspoon mild brown rice miso

Blend all in vitamix until smooth and creamy. I'm not going to lie, I did add about 1/6th of a clove of garlic. The Roman's are a bad influence on me, but with such a small amount of garlic I didn't really have a reaction.

The Salad:
romaine hearts, torn into bite sizes pieces
capers
preserved lemon slices (if you preserve your own lemons - see earlier post somewhere on this blog - take about 1/3 of a preserved lemon, gut it and rinse the rind under water. Thinly slice the rind.
fresh pepper
pea shoots for garnish (optional)
pumpkin seed parmesan (if you have any)

Toss the romaine in a generous amount of dressing and place in bowl or on plate. Top with remaining ingredients. Indulge...

Would the Roman's be proud?

REVISION
I have made more sprouted lentil gnocchi and revised the recipe. I like this one better:
1.5 cups sprouted and dried lentils
6 teaspoons chia seeds
6 whole little wild peppercorns
½ teaspoon sea salt or more
-blend above in dry vita mix container to turn into flour
then transfer to mixing bowl
add approx 1 cup but start with half cup (add as needed) sun dried tomato soaking water (water, handful of sun dried toms, soak for an hour or more. Do something else with the tomatoes, you just want the flavoured water here)
¼ cup olive oil + a few tbsp maybe (not exact measurement, obviously)
fresh minced basil

Mix all together. This time, you want the dough to be wetter but still pretty easy to roll. It will be stickier but can be in the dehydrator for longer to warm up and not get dry. The sticky nature also means it won't hold those fun gnocchi fork tine marks but if you must have the marks, you can add them after they have been in the dehydrator for about 10 mins. Enjoy!

Winter BBQ

2010-11-16T18:51:00.008-07:00

It started snowing yesterday and there is tons of snow on the ground, so I did the most logical thing I could think of: I made raw BBQ flavoured crackers with sun dried tomatoes.
Actually, I made them for my friends Kat & Cail who have to take a time traveling flight adventure to Australia on Wednesday. They will actually only fly for 14 hours, but they will never get to enjoy Thursday, November 18th. I hope these crackers make up for skipped time.

Instructions have been taken off for now..

BBQ Onion + Sun Tom Crackers

But the pictures are still pretty!

Mustard Mushrooms in Movember

2010-11-11T15:03:00.007-07:00

Hi all! Sorry it has been so long. I see you have your Movember mustaches on, so I made a perfectly manly snack to get caught in those whiskers. Lets cut right to the chase.

Mustard Mushroom Bits (Spicy Mustard Crimini Mushrooms w. Raw Sesame Crust)

The Mustard: (adapted from Sarma Melngailis' book 'Living Raw Food')

1/2 cup brown mustard seeds
3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/8 cup pinot gris (shop local if you can, I chose Sandhill from B.C.)
1/2 tbsp pink sea salt (or more to taste)
1/4 - 1/2 cup raw honey (yes, I'm aware that honey is not vegan... use agave if you want)

Soak the mustard seeds in water for an hour or more to take away some of the heat (but this didn't help me all that much, the mustard is still killer hot)
Rinse and drain seeds and put in blender with the remaining ingredients. Blend until smooth. If you taste the mustard at this point you will find it bitter and gross. Pour into dish/bowl and let sit in fridge for a few hours or overnight to get rid of the bitterness and allow the flavours to blend. Should last 1-2 weeks in fridge.

The Mushrooms:
2 6oz (170gr.) packages of organic mini crimini mushrooms, washed and sliced in half

Now for the unmeasured part:
a few tbsp, maybe ½ cup mustard from recipe above
a few tbsp olive oil
½ or ¼ red onion, chopped small

Put the mushrooms and onions in a large bowl. In a separate bowl put the mustard and olive oil. Mix with a spoon to combine well and pour over mushrooms and onions. Allow to marinate for a few hours.

Take a mixture of raw white and raw black sesame seeds (maybe 1/4 cup of each, maybe a bit more) and put them into a food processor or blender (I used the vita mix dry blade container) and blend for a very short time until fluffy and broken up (I think if you blend for too long you might end up with sesame butter). Pour into a separate bowl.
Add some sea salt to taste and mix.

One by one, add mushrooms to sesame seed crumbs and dab or carefully roll to cover in seeds. Try and make sure to have some onion bits on each mushroom for extra flavour before adding to sesame seeds. Place on teflex lined dehydrator sheet and dehydrate at 105 for about 8-16 hours (until fully dry inside). If you are planning to eat them right away then you don't have to wait until they are fully dry, there is a bit more flavour if they aren't totally crispy.

I considered spraying them with oil after they were coated for that deep fried feel, but I didn't. Might be good though. I also might add some pepper or herbs to the outside crust next time for some added flavour, but overall these are a fun little snack. Dip them in mustard for extra zing (you will have lots of mustard left over).

I went out last night to a bar for a friend's snowboard video premier. After one too many tequila waters I found myself at home devouring the whole lot of mustard mushrooms... guess I'll have to make some more...

Lemon Curd

2010-10-24T15:32:00.006-06:00

Do you have a food in your life that when you eat it, it is usually by the spoonful and you can't stop and you keep going back for more and more? That is my relationship with lemon curd (or used to be when I ate dairy and eggs). I think most people feel this way about peanut butter as well.

My friend Brooke and I were talking about lemon curd and our love for it, so I decided to create a raw vegan version.

Lemon Curd:
1 cup young thai coconut meat (preferably not too thick so it breaks down fully in the blender and becomes very smooth)
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon fresh squeezed lemon juice (I include the pulpy bits from juicing because hey, why not?)
2 tablespoons fresh lemon zest
3 drops plain liquid stevia (optional, you can just add more agave)
3 teaspoons agave (or more to taste if you like things quite sweet)
2 tablespoons coconut oil

Blend all in vita mix or high speed blender until totally smooth but be careful not to heat up the mixture too much. Those high powered blenders have a tendency to cook food if you are not careful.

You can add about 1/16 or 1/8 tsp of tumeric for colour, but be careful not to get the flavour - start out with small amounts. I will get some fresh tumeric from Calgary next time I go in and see how that plays with the colour and flavour. As you can see, I did not add any colouring to mine today.

Oh my gosh I love lemon curd!

The Gnocchi Process

2010-10-16T00:14:00.004-06:00

So the reason I sprouted lentils, dried them and turned them into a flour in the first place (see last post) is because I had an idea to make raw sprouted lentil gnocchi. Cool huh? I think Gnocchi translated to layman's terms means "lots of work" - cooked or raw, it seems to be a lengthy process.

I made four different batches, testing, adding, taking away. I didn't come up with a final "This is it!" recipe, and I'm yet to master the texture, but they are pretty fun and very easy to make (if you have the time to sprout, dehydrate and grind - see previous post for instructions).

Here is my lab work:

Juice one onion
Juice a few stalks of celery

ALL GNOCCHI
¼ cup lentil flour
1/8 tsp powdered sea salt (grind sea salt to a powder in a coffee grinder)
a few grinds of pepper
1 tbsp ground chia seeds

variation #1
3 tsp onion juice
½ tsp water
1/8 tsp olive oil
2 pinches each: dried oregano, fresh parsley, dill + cilantro

* this recipe was a bit dry and had a strong onion flavour but quite fluffy inside

variation #2
1.5 tsp onion juice
2 tsp water
1 tsp olive oil
fresh herbs

variation #3
3 tsp celery juice
½ tsp onion juice
1 tsp water
1 tsp or less olive oil
chopped fresh sage

* this variation was good, more olive oil was a nice flavour, but too much will make it more tough. Sage was tasty but I prefer the other fresh herbs such as cilantro, parsley, dill and basil.

Mix ingredients well in a bowl with a spoon.
Roll into small balls and press with a fork to get tine marks
Place in dehydrator for 10-20 mins to warm

I think the trick here is to add some water to make them more fluffy. Celery juice was really nice as well. If you are going to try this at home make a few variations as I did and see what one you like the best. If you don't want them to have a hard outside from the dehydrator coat them in olive oil first. If you come up with a better recipe let me know!

I made two different sauces for these little guys. First was a raw orange tomato vinaigrette and the second was a fresh sage cashew cream sauce w. truffle oil. Both were good but the tomato sauce cut the strong flavour of the lentils nicely. Sprouted lentil flour tastes like fresh peas kind of.

Raw Tomato Vinaigrette
2 medium organic orange tomatoes
about 1/6-1/4 cup raw cider vinegar
1-2 tbsp agave, or to taste
a few pinches of salt
1/2 clove of garlic if u must…
¼ cup olive oil

blitz all but oil in high speed blender. Then whisk in oil. You can also just add the oil to the blender and emulsify, that's what I did.

For the sage cream I soaked and blended raw cashews with lemon juice, fresh sage, sea salt, pepper, water, some celery juice... gosh I can't remember what else, some olive oil perhaps...
Pretty much just follow my recipe for dill cream sauce from the "Peas Out of the Pod" post from August but leave the dill out and replace it with a few leaves of sage and maybe a touch of fresh parsley. Add some celery juice and taste for goodness. Top it all with truffle oil. God I love that stuff.

Happy experimenting!

Red Raw... Red Raw

2010-10-03T20:09:00.007-06:00

Harvest Season!
I have been taking advantage of the tomato harvest in B.C. over the past couple of weeks. The fruit truck delivers cases of beautiful organic B.C. Roma tomatoes on Wednesdays and the dehydrator at my house has been running non-stop making me "sun dried" tomatoes. I think I'm going to end up with about 8 liters or more!

I also got the largest leek in the history of leeks last Wednesday. I wish I took a picture of it because you would all be impressed... but then again I did grab it out of the bin bearing the sign "miracle vegetables: curing world hunger".

I thought... what am I going to do with a miracle leek and one ton of tomatoes? What would Wonder Woman do? Make a garam masala curry of course!

So late one night I chopped up 2 dehydrator trays worth of quartered roma tomatoes, the miracle leek and threw them together in two large bowls. I generously coated them in garam masala powder, olive oil, pink sea salt, a touch of pepper and a splash or two of raw apple cider vinegar. Then I spread them out onto two dehydrator trays and wilted them overnight at 105 degrees.

Before:

After:

The Dish: Red Garam Masala Coconut Curry w. Parsnip Apple Rice, Crispy Leeks + Sprouted Lentil Papadum

I did not measure anything, just kept adding and tasting, adding and tasting until it was just right. Below is the general idea.

Red Garam Masala Coconut Curry Sauce:

A few handfuls of the partially dehydrated toms + leeks, but less leeks. Some fresh onion, about ¼ of a small one. Fresh ginger (about 1 tbsp or more), one fresh roma tomato, 2 tsp whole coriander, some cumin, coconut milk made at home*, sea salt, chili flakes, cayenne, soaked dried pepper (I used dried pasilla pepper, soaked in water to re-hydrate), garam masala as needed, coconut oil, warmed to liquefy (about 1 tbsp).
All blended in a vita mix

*Coconut Milk:
Either use fresh young coconuts blended with coconut water OR 2 cups raw dried coconut flakes blended with 4 cups of water and strained through a nut milk bag. I used the later for this recipe. I kept adding it to the tomato mixture until I reached my desired consistency.

Tomatoes can be quite gelatinous. I believe this is due to the high pectin content. The more coconut milk I added, and the more I blended, the less gelatinous the sauce became and even if your sauce starts to congeal, a quick whisk usually solves the problem. You can also try whisking in more melted coconut oil or olive oil.

Every curry needs rice!

Parsnip Apple Rice:
3 med/large parsnips
¾ - 1 med apple
¼ cup cashews
sea salt
2-3 tbsp miso/coconut oil blend, or just a couple tbsp coconut oil and 1 tbsp white miso
2 green onions minced

pulse parsnips a few times first then add rest (except green onion) and pulse more until grain of rice size. Transfer to a bowl and stir in green onions. Cover and place in dehydrator to warm until ready to use.

Slice 1 zucchini thin and coat with sea salt and olive oil. Dehydrate for a couple of hours at 105-115 degrees.

Smoked Pepper Sprouted Lentil Papadum

I spent a few days sprouting lentils on my counter. 1 night soaking, 2 days sprouting, until they had nice little 1/2 inch long tails. I then dehydrated them until they were crispy dry (about 8 hours).

THEN, using my smaller dry blade vita mix container, I tuned them into fine lentil flour. NOW we are ready to make raw papadums!

This recipe is also vague, but as long as you use about 4-5 tbsp water for every 1/4 cup of lentil flour, it is hard to screw up.

Approx. 1/2 or 1 tsp of smoked black pepper (or regular pepper)
1/4 cup lentil flour
4-5 tsp water
sea salt
A bit of olive oil (1 tsp or less)
Form into balls and flatten with spoon, very thin!

Wet spoon for ease of spread. I tried to use parchment paper and a rolling pin and it worked ok, but still had to smooth with spoon after, and the paste stuck to the parchment. Dehydrate these at 105-115 until they are very hard and crispy, about 8 hours, transferring to mesh screen half way through.

When everything is done, place some rice in a bowl, top with sauce, garnish with zucchini, masala coated crispy leeks, a masala coated partially dried tomato, fresh cilantro and a papadum.

Sounds like a lot of work, but when you don't plan things, sometimes they just come together (I had already sprouted and dried lentils a few days earlier to make sprouted lentil gnocchi - which was pretty fun - I may post that next).

Enjoy the harvest!

Well Mr. Plum, That's a Wrap.

2010-09-29T02:10:00.007-06:00

The other day I felt like having a wrap. How nice is it to hold your salad in an edible container? Pretty nice I say.
I've made lots of crackers and breads but not really any wraps. My first shot at it was a success! Check the recipe.

Zucchini Dill Wraps

2 large zucchini
¼ cup olive oil
1/8 cup braggs
some parsley
some dill, mostly large stems (great way to use up the stems)
¼ cup sesame seeds, raw, white
½ cup ground chia seeds + 1-2 tbsp
1 fairly large leek, white and light green part only
6 green onions

Process all in food processor for a while. If you have a seven cup processor like me, or smaller, you may need to do this in shifts 'cause it won't all fit. Spread on teflex sheets (3-6 depending on size of anticipated wrap). Circular spreads - see picture below. Flip after about 4-6 hours. Dehydrate another hour or so. Keep a good eye on it, those edges will crisp up in no time and you want it to be very bendy, not crisp. This wrap was the size of my torso. I used 3 teflex sheets, one wrap on each. Next time I'll make smaller ones.

If you aren't using them right away, roll them up and put them in some sort of plastic (eew gross I'm sorry!) to keep them soft.

Even though this wrap was huge, there was still room for pie. There is always room for pie.

How amazing are red heart plums?! So juicy and sweet. So so lovely. I got a bunch from the fruit truck the other week and made this pie. Sure, the agar agar part isn't raw, but I didn't plan on making this pie, so I didn't have any soaked irish moss on hand.

Of course I didn't write it down, so this is a basic guideline. The pie was so simple to make you can just play around with these ingredients and get something awesome.

Red Heart Plum Pie

Crust:
I just took a bunch of nuts like almonds and pecans and pulsed them with date paste (dates processed in a food processor with orange juice, lemon juice or water) and a bit of sea salt and coconut oil until I had a crust that held together. Don't over-process nuts though or they will get very oily and turn to nut butter. Press in pie shell and place in fridge until the filling is ready.

Filling:
approx 8-10 very ripe red heart plums
finely chopped zest from about 1/4 of a lime, maybe more
juice from half of a lime
a couple drops of liquid stevia or agave to sweeten
1/2 cup of water
2 tsp of agar agar flakes(to be honest, I can't remember how much agar I put in)

Skin the plums and eat the skin. Chop the flesh into random small bits (mine were so mushy they pretty much fell apart on their own). If your plums aren't that mushy, place in food processor and pulse until broken down but still a bit chunky. Place in bowl and add stevia/agave, zest and lime juice. Taste for sweetness. I can't remember if I added a pinch of sea salt...
Bring the water to a boil on the stove. Add the agar agar flakes and stir well. Keep on the heat for a minute or so. Remove from heat and make sure it looks like it is getting thicker. If you are not confident this mixture will slightly solidify your plums then add more agar while it is still hot. Allow the agar agar to cool slightly (so it won't make the plums hot). Add to plum mixture, stir well and pour in pie shell. Place in fridge for a few hours to set.

I topped this bad boy with fresh mango lime cashew cream consisting pretty much just of lime juice and zest, a really ripe mango, cashews, lucuma powder, sea salt and water blended in a vita mix until smooth.

Hope you can still get red plums from your local farmers market, they are all done for the season here. Bye bye till next year special plums.

Sunny Coconuts

2010-09-12T12:19:00.009-06:00

Coconut [koh-kuh-nuht, -nuht] - The most awesome thing to ever come out of the tropics, and that includes the bikini.

I woke up this morning to this sight beaming in my bedroom window. Holy crap - were is the camera?!

After a ten minute photo shoot with the clouds I made my way downstairs and thought "well... there is only one way this morning can get better, and that is if I make coconut yogurt".

On a recent trip to Calgary I picked up 8 coconuts (the ones that didn't have mold on them at the little Asian market). The first 4 I used to make chocolate coconut pudding (from Sarma's 2nd book "Living Raw Food"). The last 4 I used this morning to make lemon coconut yogurt.

I was lucky with this batch of coconuts because all of the meat was white and pretty thick (but not too thick). I have bought coconuts before that were off (all pinky/purple inside). What a waste. The water inside these ones was not totally light and clear, it had a bit of a yellowish/brown tinge, but it tastes ok, and I'm not going to waste it...

If you want to know how to open a young coconut, follow this link: http://www.rawguru.com/html/openyoungcoconut.html
I like to use the back of a spoon to pry the meat from the shell.

Lemon Coconut Yogurt:

Meat from 4 young Thai coconuts (about 4 cups)
1/4 cup water from young coconuts (add more if your meat is really thick and hard, or less if your meat is thin and slimy)
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
a piece of lemon rind (size pictured below)
1/8 tsp sea salt
2 drops vanilla liquid stevia (I didn't want it too sweet, you will probably want to add about 1/8 - 1/4 cup of raw agave nectar and either a bit of vanilla extract or some vanilla bean inside scrapings)
3 Bio-K dairy-free probiotic pills

Place everything in the blender except the probiotics and puree until smooth and creamy. Then:

Break open the Bio-K probiotic capsules and pour the powdery contents into the blender. Turn blender on for a couple seconds to incorporate the powder into the coconut cream.
Pour coconut yogurt out into a glass bowl and allow to sit on counter for 4-6 hours to activate the probiotics. Give the yogurt a sniff every once in a while to see how fast the probiotics are culturing the coconut cream. When you feel it is ready, place it in the fridge with a lid and cool. Eat!

Coconut yogurt w. red heart plums

There's No Taste Like Home

2010-09-01T20:01:00.017-06:00

One week in hot, bountiful heaven. If you haven't guessed from the title of this entry (if the slogan hasn't been ingrained in your brain from childhood), I am talking about southern Ontario. Kahshe Lake, Gravenhurst, Muskoka to be exact.

I had an unlimited amount of organic tomatoes available to me from my dad's garden waiting to be paired with fresh picked basil, parsley, rosemary or jalapenos all sitting in the garden getting massaged by tent caterpillars.

On the third day of vacation, the mom and I set out on the cottage road and into the forest with a 3L "Fresh Ontario Fruit" basket to get scratched by thorns...er pick wild blackberries.

After a couple hours of photographing nature things and searching for berries we managed to fill the whole basket. Heck yea! We had so many I made a pie and only used 1/3 of them.

Here are some pretty flowers along the way

and some more...

...and some more?...

As I have always been aware, from living in a tourist town, when you go on vacation your brain spends most of the time drinking wine and listening to the crickets. There were a lot of crickets outside the cottage so I can't blame my brain for not remembering how my hands made the pie.

Perhaps brain was subconsciously paying attention...lets ask it.

Pie Crust?
6 dates
splash o.j
blend in food processor until mostly a paste then add:
some almonds and walnuts (a bunch)
about 1/8 cup chia seeds, maybe less, like a tablespoon
some large coconut flakes/chips (not a ton, maybe a handful)
vanilla bean powder (maybe a 1/2 teaspoon)
about a tablespoon or maybe about 3 tablespoons of coconut oil
some sea salt
pulse all together in food processor until well combined and nuts are broken down to a pretty small size. You want this to be dough-like, easily spreadable in a pie dish.

Blackberry & Cream Filling:
Place a whole bunch of blackberries on the crust and then make the cream.
The cream was made from one cup of raw cashews (soaked for a few hours), the meat from two young thai coconuts and some of the coconut water, 2-4 drops liquid stevia, some vanilla bean, a touch of sea salt, maybe about a 1/4 or 1/3 cup of coconut oil and some lucuma powder (about a tbsp). I think that was it. Cream should be quite thick but pourable.

Once the cream ingredients are blended and smooth, pour the cream into the pie crust speckled with blackberries. Place more berries on top and place in fridge to set for a few hours.

Pie will be easy to slice with a knife and hold its shape on the plate.

It was so good!

Did you know that wintergreen mint is a berry? I just blew your mind didn't I?
Also available in this flower and blackberry forest is wintergreen! I picked some of these berries, along with the leaves and muddled myself a fantastic elixir.

Wintergreen MoVito
10 or so fresh wintergreen berries
6 wintergreen leaves
1 oz vodka
1 drop liquid stevia (I used vanilla) or agave syrup to taste
ice
soda to top it off

Muddle the berries and leaves with the vodka, sweetener and ice. Top with soda.
Amazing and so refreshing when it is 34 degrees out!

Food Factory

2010-08-22T01:55:00.010-06:00

The last couple of weeks have been quite busy with weddings and birthdays and graphic design work and getting ready for vacations and warm weather. Like I have to make an excuse to myself for not food blogging, and then publicize it on my food blog...

I made an awesome raw taco salad tonight. Want to hear about it? Here it goes:

Raw Taco Salad w. Cilantro Lime Dressing

Cilantro Lime Dressing
Almost a whole small bunch cilantro, including stems
A few ½ inch thick slivers of white onion
Juice from 2 limes
Some olive oil
Pinch coriander
2 Szechwan green peppercorns (optional, jalapeno might be nice too)
¼ tsp sea salt

Blend in blender
Then add some more cilantro to chop in blender but leave chunky/flaky in dressing

The Salad Part
2 ears of corn cut off (only use organic corn! non-organic corn is one of the most genetically modified and f-ed up things growing)
½ red pepper chopped small
½ med white onion chopped small
1 bunch of flat kale, chopped
1 small-med. head broccoli, just florets chopped small

Toss veg with dressing and let sit while preparing the rest.

Walnut Taco "Meat"
1.5 cups raw walnuts - pulsed in food processor to resemble ground beef bits

Transfer to bowl and mix in:
2 tsp braggs liquid aminos/liquid soy
1.5 tsp ground cumin
3/4 tsp ground coriander

Place the salad w. dressing in bowls and distribute the taco meat on top. Serve with sliced yellow tomato and sliced or chopped avocado (I did not use avocado cause I forgot to get some at the store but I think it would be great in this salad).

I also cut up some raw zucchini onion bread into little triangles and put them on top.

Tah-Dah!

Ok so I've also been doing lots of other experimenting and even making my own vegan ice creams in my ice cream maker that I've owned for 7 years and used the first time yesterday! (made 3 ice creams since last night - making up for lost time)
Here are some pics of other dishes I have made in the past few weeks:

Mushroom Burrito (zucchini cumin wrap w. marinated mushroom meat and guacamole)

Zucchini Tagliatelle Salad w. B.C. Peach Sauce, Pea Shoots + Cumin Spiced Pumpkin Seeds

Spinach + Onion "Quiche" w. Nectarine Salsa

Mixed Raw Nut + Fruit Parfait w. Lavender Cashew Cream
(which I apparently made for Eddie)

Tomorrow I'm going to give this white chocolate thing another go... got an idea that just might work...

The Delightful Misunderstandings of Chocolate + Macadamia Nut

2010-08-08T02:23:00.000-06:00

Mrs. Powder reunites with her long lost soul mate Mr. Fat. Emotions of the vanilla persuasion swirl in their heads. Feelings of sweet and salt come to the surface as things start to heat up. They must not allow things to get too hot for their guests are on their way. They take a moment to cool themselves before welcoming Mr. Macadamia and Mrs. Coconut with enveloping arms.

...or something like that...

Raw Chocolate!

200 grams raw cocoa butter, chopped into small bits for easier melting
12 tablespoons raw cocoa powder
2 tsp raw agave
1/8 tsp Himalayan sea salt (or less)
2 drops liquid vanilla stevia
¼ tsp ground vanilla beans, or scrape the inside of half of a bean
2 tbsp melted virgin coconut oil – optional, can add olive oil too for something different

Using the double boiler method (I usually use a sauce pan with some water and a 1L glass pyrex measuring cup), put the cocoa butter in the pyrex and melt on med-low, stirring so the bottom never gets too warm (keeping it raw - under 115 degrees - or room temperature to the touch). When all of the butter is almost melted, take the glass measuring cup out of the water/off the heat. Make sure you never get any water in the cocoa butter, it will ruin your chocolate. Continue to stir the melted cocoa butter until no more solid white chunks remain.

Add the rest of the ingredients and frantically stir with a whisk for a while until it starts to cool and thicken. You probably don't have to whisk it the whole time... maybe you can let it sit and cool for a few minutes before whisking again.

Taste for sweetness, saltiness, overall flavour and adjust to your taste buds. (I like dark, bitter, salty chocolate).

When slightly thicker, but not too thick, pour into chocolate molds or some other mold.

In the molds I usually have several different nuts and fruits or a combination of the two. My faves are: raw macadamia nuts, goji berries, home made trail mix, large coconut flakes/chips, jungle peanuts and dried strawberries.

Sometimes I like to separate the chocolate into a few bowls and try adding different flavours such as: black/green peppers (see "The New Salt" post about my pepper selection from Montreal), lavender, olive oil, curry powder, cocoa nibs, lucuma powder, macca powder...the list goes on and on.

This batch, I also rolled individual macadamia nuts in the chocolate. Be careful when you keep your nuts in the fridge and do not allow them to come to room temp. they will make the chocolate harden fast!

*They have THE BEST raw macadamia nuts at Nu Roots in Canmore - taste just like the ones from the mac nut farm on the big island of Hawaii - well worth the $. http://www.nu-roots.com/*

Place all chocolate in the molds in the freezer for 10-20 minutes to harden and then take out and pop out of the molds. Place in fridge for storage. You can always improvise with molds. Silicone muffin cups work fantastic, as do silicone mini muffin mats (silicone is great because you can easily pop the chocolate out). If you are using muffin cups try putting your favourite nut butter in the middle to make a home version of those peanut butter cups we all used to eat as kids.

I kind of just figured this recipe out for myself, with no real understanding of chocolate and how it works. If you have any tips for me or your own chocolate recipe, I'd love to hear it!

Taking it Back... to the Dill Days

2010-08-05T01:19:00.008-06:00

I was on the grass in the school yard between the sandy playground and the dusty ball diamond of my elementary school when I carefully dipped my hand into the small crinkly bag and came out with a single potato chip. As the tip of the fried root vegetable touched my tongue I knew, at that moment - like love at first sight - that dill pickle chips and I would have a life long, passionate relationship.

I now present you with an amazing healthy alternative to the indulgence we all know a little too well...

Dill Pickle Kale Chips

1 package of baby dill (28 grams / 1 oz) - including stems
1 cup raw cashews
1/2 of a small white onion
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon white miso
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
juice from one lemon (approx. 3 tablespoons)
1/4 teaspoon Himalayan sea salt
2 pinches of fresh ground pepper

Place all in vita mix/high speed blender and blend until smooth. A regular blender might actually work for this recipe... give it a whirl.

Wash 2 bunches of curly kale and dry in salad spinner. I usually let them air-dry after spinning. Grabbing the hard stem, run your other hand up it to separate the leaves from the thickest part of the stem. Discard the hard stem. Tear the leaves into bite-size pieces with your hands. Place 1/4 of the leaves in a big bowl and pour 1/4 of the dill cream on top. Mix with your hands, making sure to fully coat all of the leaves (those curled over insides can be hard to get at). Add more of the leaves and more of the cream until all of the leaves are coated and all of the cream is used up.

Place in a single layer on 4 dehydrator screens and dehydrate around 100-105 degrees until fully dry and crispy (approx. 10-15 hours).
Try not to eat them all in one sitting.

* you can also buy another thing of baby dill and chop some of it up to sprinkle on top or mix in after the cream and the kale are fully entangled. Weird that I didn't take any pictures of fresh dill.

Green is the new Green

2010-08-02T09:54:00.007-06:00

I drink smoothies every morning, not because I hear they are good for me (that ads to the charm though), but because they taste awesome. You can have one every day for the rest of your life and always experience a different flavour combination. They make me feel really good too, and full for hours. I made a pretty good one this morning so I'll share that recipe along with a few others.

Melon Lemongrass Breakfast Drink

1/2 cantaloupe
about 3-4 cups of baby spinach
approx. 1 inch long slice fresh lemongrass
2 thin carrots
about 1 cup water or coconut water
2 drops vanilla liquid stevia (or whatever sweetener you want + some vanilla bean)

Blend thoroughly in high speed blender until smooth. I'm not sure how it would turn out with a normal (not vita mix) blender because the lemongrass might be hard to pulverize.

Spinach Papaya Black Raspberry Shake

If you are fortunate enough to have those smaller orange-inside papayas available, use them in this recipe. My friend Jackie sent me a box of papayas in the mail this winter from Hawaii (best day of my life so far) so I got to experience their magical flavour.

2+ cups baby spinach
1 frozen banana (or fresh, whatever)
½ - ¾ cup black raspberries, frozen
1 cup brazil nut milk (1 cup brazil nuts and 4 cups water, blend, strain, put rest in fridge for other days)
1 cup or so water
½ teaspoon spirulina
1 teaspoon camu camu powder (optional, added vit. C)
some goji berries
½ orange inside papaya

Vita!

So I don't have any pictures for this smoothie or the next because I didn't make them today (or recently) but keeping with the Hawaii talk, this is a lady (right) on the Big Island who has a fruit stand just off the road on the way from the south to Kona. (Girl on the left is Jackie). She grows all her own organic fruit and nuts and also sells dehydrated fruit (that she dries herself, raw!) Major unexpected highlight of the trip. (nerdy, I know)

The green fruit in the far left corner is called a Cherimoya - a.k.a. the best fruit on the planet. If you ever see one of these, you must purchase/pick it. Check out the fresh cacao fruit on the bottom right!

Tea-less Green Tea Shake

I came up with this shake when I was staying away from all sugary fruit (ha, like that lasted long) and it actually tasted like greet tea.

2 thin org. carrots
approx. 1 cup big leaf spinach
approx. ½ tbsp chlorella
juice from 1.5 small lemons
1-2 dandelion stems/leaves
fresh coconut water
pinch sea salt

blend.

One more...

Green Pina Colada

meat from 2 young thai coconuts
water from 2 young thai coconuts
1/2 fresh pineapple
2-4 cups baby spinach
1/4 vanilla bean or 3 drops vanilla stevia liquid
2 tablespoons melted coconut oil

Vita Mix.

This was purchased from a guy on the side of the road selling coconuts and passion fruit. He climbed the palms himself to get the coconuts earlier that day.

I don't always add spinach as my green, but if you want to taste the fruit and other flavours then spinach is mild enough to let those others shine through. Cilantro is always a nice addition, as is cucumber, which ads to the bulk and water content of the shake. Other things I commonly add to fruit smoothies are: raw black sesame seeds (calcium), hemp protein or hemp hearts (protein, build/maintain lean muscle, brain + healthy skin, aids cardio, immune + nervous system function), coconut oil(anti-fungal/bacterial/viral, weight loss, reduces risk of heart disease, improves digestive disorders, protects liver from alcohol damage, rejuvenates skin/prevents wrinkles), pumpkin seeds (zink), cinnamon (balances blood sugar) and macca powder (balances hormones, increases energy).

Check out my friend Jonas' blog too. He is in a band from Toronto that just toured the west and they stayed with me for a night. I made them breakfast and we hiked a small mountain. http://www.eveninghymns.com/blog/tour-blog-day-12/

Bye for now.

Whats the best thing about 4 cups of dead strawberries?

2010-07-30T00:22:00.005-06:00

I couldn't resist another post today because I made strawberry soft serve ice cream for dessert, and it was awesome. Keeping with the theme of today, I didn't really measure most of my ingredients but made this recipe in record time.

Strawberry Ice Cream

Coconut meat from one young thai coconut (not too thin. not too thick. just right.)
A splash of coconut water (maybe half cup)
1.5 - 2 tsp lucuma powder
1 tbsp coconut oil (was melted from the summer heat)
1/3 cup raw cashews
Pinch of vanilla bean powder (ground vanilla beans)
3 drops french vanilla liquid stevia

I blended all of these things into a nice cream, fairly thick, but not as thick as the dill cashew cream from my earlier post. *Note to self - create a cream thickness rating scale*
It is important to blend these things first before adding the frozen fruit because it keeps the coconut oil from hardening in chunks and it totally breaks down the cashews and coconut meat.

Then, to the blender I added:

3.5 -4 cups frozen strawberries (from fresh strawberries that I had washed and frozen a few weeks ago)

Using the vita mix plunger, I rammed the crap out of the berries, plunging them straight into the unforgiving blades of the two horse power machine until they were completely pulverized and smooth.

My taste buds were dancing with joy. I think I even heard them laughing and telling dead strawberry jokes.

Peas out of the Pod

2010-07-29T16:40:00.004-06:00

When I was a little girl my dad always grew peas in our backyard garden. They were my favourite snack of the summer and very few peas actually escaped past my mouth into the basket for the rest of the family to enjoy. I bet the other vegetables thought I was some sort of pea monster...that doesn't sound right.

I just made a pretty fun salad. It was quick too! I bought a bag of peas-in-the-pod at the market yesterday and had some broccoli in the fridge... and I didn't really use any measuring tools... sorry (deal with it).

Summer Pea + Broccoli Salad w/ Dill Cashew Cream

approx. 1.5 cups of shelled fresh peas
approx. 3/4 or 1 cup of broccoli that has been chopped into pea-sized bites (or a bit bigger)
1 green onion, minced

Place in mixing bowl and wait for the cream...

Dill Cashew Cream

1 cup raw cashews
approx. 2/3 or more cup water (add more to get creamy but not runny consistency - you want it to be pretty thick
approx. 5-6 stems of baby dill (stems included)
approx. 1/4 teaspoon sea salt (or to taste)
pinch of fresh ground black pepper (I used my fancy wild black pepper, yum!)
a couple squeezes fresh lime (or lemon) - almost half of a lime's juice

Blend all this in a vita mix or high speed blender until creamy. Taste for salt and dill.

I put about 4 tablespoons of the dill cream on the pea mixture and tossed it together.

Pea Monster hungry

I plan on using the rest of the dill cream for making dill flavoured kale chips. I'll probably add some apple cider vinegar and more salt... maybe some miso and extra dill too. Oh, and onion.

Ok Bye!

Fruit Truck Salad

2010-07-22T00:29:00.012-06:00

Hoorah for "fruit truck" day in Banff. Fresh B.C. produce. Let's make a big ass salad shall we...

You will need whatever fruit and vegetables your local market has to offer. I used:

1/2 cucumber, sliced thin then chopped in half
1/2 big yellow paddy pan squash, sliced thin then chopped in half
3 radishes, sliced with a vegetable peeler
2 apricots, cut into wedges
a couple handfuls of blueberries
one package of Earthbound Organics baby arugula (no, the market didn't have baby arugula, booo)
one green onion, sliced thin
a handful of raw walnut pieces (pine nuts are great on this salad but I didn't have any)

Preserved Lemon + Dill Vinaigrette
(I made this dressing up last year and loved it so much I put it in a cook book that I made for a friend)

2 tablespoons chopped fresh baby dill
3/4 of a preserved lemon rind, chopped small (recipe to follow)
1/4 cup canola or olive oil
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 small white onion, chopped small
1/2 teaspoon fresh ginger, chopped small
1 tablespoon raw apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon sake (optional)

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until onion and lemon are very broken down but not 100% smooth (but pretty much). You can probably use a food processor for this too. You want itsy bitsy pieces of the lemon and onion and flecks of dill.

Throw everything into a bowl except the nuts (unless you want to throw the nuts in, I'm not there to judge you) and toss really well to coat with vinaigrette.

Preserved Lemons
Ok, so I take 2-3 months to make my lemons (actually, Grant Parry's lemons), at Pure Food and Wine they take 5 days- they are more efficient in NYC. I have only made this vinaigrette with my (Grant's) version of preserved lemons. They do not use sugar for their preserved lemons at Pure Food + Wine so if you use their version you may need to add a sweetener to the dill vinaigrette.

You need a large mason jar.
6-8 organic lemons (important to get organic because you eat the peel only)
1 package of sea salt
1 package of organic cane sugar

Stand lemon on end and cut 3/4 of the way through, vertically and again to create a "+" when looking straight down. In a large bowl, combine two cups of the salt with one cup of the sugar and mix well. Slightly open each lemon from the top and pack tightly with salt/sugar mixture and slightly close again. Place the lemons in the mason jar until you can't cram any more in. Pour the remaining salt/sugar mixture over the lemons in the jar and fill to the very top. Make more salt/sugar if you need to. Put the lid on the jar and leave it on your counter for 2-3 months. You may need to add more salt/sugar as time passes and the lemons become exposed on top. (Juice seeps out of lemons and melts the salt/sugar slightly)

Keep the lemons in the jar, even when ready. To use, cut the inner bits out and throw away, keep the rind. I usually rinse the rind before using to get rid of any excess salt/sugar.

This is my current jar of preserved lemons. I used very coarse salt, as you can see.

Pure Food and Wine 5 day Preserved Lemons
(Because you might not want to wait 2-3 months to make this salad)

7-8 lemons
2 cups freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 cups filtered water
2 tablespoons sea salt

Cut the lemons crosswise into very thin slices. Remove the seeds and place the lemon slices in a salad press or other container. In a blender, combine the lemon juice, water and salt and blend well. Pour over the sliced lemons and apply pressure with the salad press top or using another method to fully submerge the lemons in the liquid. Cover with a dish towel and set on counter for 5 days. Store in fridge after 5 days.

I love summer food!

Yellow Day

2010-07-10T17:04:00.010-06:00

It is a yellow day. Not only because the sun has finally made an appearance here in Banff, but also because I decided to make raw banana bread - yipee! (I LOVE banana bread but have not been able to eat it for the past 2 years)

Remember - no sugar, no flours, no idea how to do this...

Ok so I had sprouted some quinoa on the counter last night and knew I wanted to incorporate that. There were three pretty ripe bananas on the counter... but what to use for the bulk... check the fridge... carrots! Ok, here we go:

2 bananas
1 cup raw walnuts
1/2 cup carrot pulp left over from juicing

Place all in food processor and pulse until just combined and walnuts are broken down but not into smooth butter. Transfer to bowl.

Add:

1/3 cup ground chia seeds
1/8 tsp ground vanilla beans
pinch or two sea salt
pinch cinnamon
1 tablespoon coconut oil
1/4 cup sprouted quinoa (Soak quinoa on counter for 6 or so hours in glass jar or sprouting jar. Drain and Rinse. Let stand overnight in dark place to sprout in the jar. Rinse and use)
3 drops of vanilla flavoured stevia liquid

Mix all with a spoon until well combined and spread onto teflex sheet, about an inch or inch and a half thick. Slice the third banana and place on top. Dehydrate at 100-105 for about 5 hours, flip off onto mesh screen and dehydrate until you feel it is done. I just sliced into mine after 5 hours on the teflex and 1 hour on the mesh and it was quite moist inside. Tasty, but I would like to see how it turns out when kept in for longer. Let you know later tonight!

Finished!

Might add some home made chocolate chips next time or dried coconut flakes. Overall, I think this recipe is a success. Some of you sugar-eaters may want to add dates (and yes, I realize that bananas and carrots have lots of natural sugars... Yum!)

UPDATE: JULY 15 - So I had something really strange going on with my taste buds where everything was bitter and gross - everything I ate for 3 days! I'm not sure if this recipe is actually good or if it was the reason my taste buds were so messed up (don't think so based on the ingredients but you never know). Anyway, I have decided that this recipe was NOT a success. Please don't try this at home haha.

Check out this ant I almost stepped on in Revelstoke last Tuesday - He is carrying a flower! (It is not a yellow flower, so I stepped on him immediately after this photo. Hope he learned his lesson)

Summoning Summer

2010-07-02T01:30:00.015-06:00

I should be making web sites and designing stuff but it is Canada day and every other person with the day off is probably doing something un-work related so I decided to un-cook. (Dear Valued Clients, the wheels are in motion - I swear).

July 1st... Canada Day... it IS summer, right? Cool, I'll make food with summer vegetables then. I think they came from California (ssssshhhhh don't tell), where things grow because it IS summer there. The fruit truck visits Banff once a week on Wednesdays in the summer and is supposed to bring fresh fruit and vegetables from the Okanagan. I saw dole and green giant stickers last week on a few items... gross! I didn't purchase those items, but I did purchase green peas, green beans, red beets and yellow zucchini. Lately I have been obsessed with fresh vegetables chopped up and tossed together with a little bit of pink sea salt (massaged in) and good quality organic olive oil. That is all you need if your produce is at its best - yum.

Ok so here is the menu for this evening:
Fresh Green Pea + Cashew Cream stuffed Coconut Purses with Flat Leaf Parsley Pesto, wilted Green Beans and Red Beet Salad.

This is the shopping list:
*a couple of young thai coconuts
*green onions
*red beets or any other deep coloured vegetable you want to juice for colouring
*a medium yellow zucchini
*a few handfuls of green beans
*a bunch of green peas
*chia seeds (optional)
*raw cashews
*a lemon
*pine nuts
*small bunch of basil
*large bunch of flat leaf parsley
*small bunch of cilantro
*olive oil

Equipment:
*vita mix
*dehydrator
*food Processor

I would like to say that although the visual idea for the coconut purses was not my brain child, I made up my own recipe for these little guys. If I was to make these again I would double the recipe for the purses. Most of my coconuts had no meat inside so I had to make do with one cup.

Coconut Purses:
1 cup young coconut meat
2 green onions (white part only)
1/4 tsp. sea salt

Blend until smooth and creamy then add:

1/2 medium yellow zucchini, peeled (save peel)

Blend again until smooth and creamy

OK - I was experimenting so bear with me..

I took 1/3 cup of this mixture out and put it aside, and another 1/4 cup out and put in separate bowl and mixed a few dashes of spirulina powder in it (for green colour. I didn't have any spinach to juice, otherwise I think I would have done that instead, nicer flavour).

I then juiced one small red beet to get approx. 1/8 cup juice. Look at the crema on top of that beat juice - beauty! I am now officially a home juice barista. That's right.

I put this beet juice into the vita mix with the remaining coconut/zucchini puree. Then I took another 1/4 cup of the puree out and added 1 tsp. ground chia seeds to the remaining mixture in the blender. Just wanted to see what turned out better, chia infused wrappers or regular wrappers (they both turned out good).

Anyway, you must be bored by now... skip to the end...

Spread each different puree out pretty thin on a teflex sheet and dehydrate at 105 for about 3-4 hours, until you can peel them off with no residue left on the teflex. Trim the outer crustier edges away and slice into large rectangles or squares. Squares are probably best but who is judging.

Put in fridge until you are ready to use. Don't let any water get on these delicate little guys.

Fresh Pea + Cashew Cream:
1 cup cashews, soaked for a bunch of hours (like 4 or more)
1/2 cup fresh shucked peas
1 teaspoon lemon zest
juice from one lemon (about 2 tablespoons)
1/4-1/2 tsp. sea salt
1/8 cup water
1 small piece of celery from the inside of the bunch, you know, those really light green guys that look quite young

Blend all in vita mix and use the plunger to force the cream into the blades until smooth. Place in fridge until you need it.

Flat Leaf Parsley Pesto:
2 cups packed parsley
4 large basil leaves
small handful cilantro
1/4 cup good extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/2 teaspoon pink sea salt
pinch fresh black pepper

Place all in food processor until it looks like the very top image above on the far right.

Ok now take some fresh green beans, slice lengthwise down the seam, coat in olive oil, sea salt and black pepper and throw in the dehydrator for a few hours at 105 to "wilt".

Now take 2 small beets or one med red beet and shave it with a veg peeler until you can't shave any more off. Now slice those shavings lengthwise in half. Thin strips.
Toss in olive oil and sea salt. Mince 1 green onion and toss with beets.

If you actually did all this, wow good for you! If you actually understood all this, you are a champ.

Now fill the coconut wrappers with green pea puree, folding the sides in to create a pocket

and tie them up with the outside of the zucchini shavings (may need to cut shavings in half and make sure they are dry). You will want to do this right before you serve them because the coconut wrappers have about a half hour/hour max shelf life before they start to turn to mush where they are in contact with the pea puree.

Take a look at the pictures, that is easier than me trying to tell you how I assembled everything.

Well... cheers to summer!

Rise and Glow

2010-06-23T00:25:00.005-06:00

Whenever I go on vacation, which seems to be a lot lately (hooray for West Jet seat sales), I must be prepared to feed myself and make sure I do not wither away. I usually seem to over-compensate for this fear of having to hear my stomach say "hey, jerk face, I'm not just here to connect your upper body to your lower body" and spend the entire week uncooking before the trip.

I have taken to creating my own raw buckwheat cereal a few days before vacation so I have something to eat as soon as I get up in the foreign land.

At first I thought the buckwheat gave a funny gritty or almost chalky texture, but now I am used to it and I dig it.

Here is the most recent variation of travel cereal:

Apple Chai Cereal

Soak 2 cups buckwheat overnight in water. Drain and rinse.
(not kasha, for kasha is toasted)

Chai Spice:
1 tbsp anise seed
6 cardamon pods
6 cloves (see caution below)
1 cinnamon stick, broken up
2 inch nub fresh ginger, sliced thin and dehydrated
1/4 tsp black peppercorns
2 bay leaves
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
4 star anise

Blend all in dry vita mix container until it is a fine powder, you will have lots left over for other chai recipes. If you have a better chai recipe please share!
*CAUTION - grinding cloves in your vita mix will scratch the crap out of it, it will also scratch your coffee grinder, just buy pre-ground*

Apple Chai Cream
2 gala apples, cored and chopped, skin on
2/3 cup dried coconut flakes soaked in 2/3 cup water for half hour or more
1/2 cup cashew pieces soaked in less than half cup water for 1-2 hours
1-2 tsp chai spice from above

Put cashews and coconut and all but 1/3 cup of the water in the vita. Blend till smooth. Add chai spice and chopped apples.
Blend till smooth. (add more of the soaking water if you need to, I didn't really measure this out so well, bear with me)

Other Ingredients
Handful walnuts
Handful Hazelnuts
2 tbsp ground chia seeds
Vanilla bean insides, powder or extract to taste

Place all but approx 1/4 of the buckwheat in food processor with apple cream, vanilla and ground chia seeds. Process until fully flowing and as smooth as you can get it. Add handful of walnuts and handful of hazelnuts. Lightly pulse batter w/ nuts so they are still chunky. Alternatively, you can just chop the nuts with a knife and stir them into the batter by hand. Transfer batter to a bowl and mix in the rest of the whole buckwheat.

Spread out on teflex sheets and add thinly sliced apples to the top. It is kind of a pain to spread the batter because the nuts stick up and create slits in the batter, but that is ok, do your best to spread the batter evenly about 1/4 inch thick.

Dehydrate overnight until dry. Break apart. Enjoy with home made nut milk (or store bought stuff if you are on vacation - when will they come out with the travel vita mix?)

Nut Milk
1 cup almonds (preferably soaked), hazelnuts, brazil nuts or any nut, or combination of these nuts
4 cups water

Blend in vita mix or blender until smooth. Strain through nut milk bag.

Optional - Put milk back into blender and add any or all of the following:
1 tsp soy lecithin
1 tbsp coconut oil
pinch sea salt
vanilla of some sort
pinch stevia or 2 drops liquid stevia

Ok, now you can rise and... glow. Peace out!

Raw Anniversary

2010-06-20T00:02:00.008-06:00

Can you believe it has been only one year (and 9 days) since I first discovered raw food? On June 11th, 2009 I went for dinner at Pure Food and Wine in NYC with my mom. I didn't know anything about the place let alone why anyone would bother to eat only raw food. Were they bad at paying the power bill? Were raw food consumers just lazy? Maybe it was a good movement for old people so they didn't have to remember to turn the stove off?

As soon as I sat down at the table in the small red room I knew this place was special. When I told the server my allergies and he came back from the kitchen with only 3 things crossed off the menu that I could not eat, I knew this place was extra special. I won't bore you with the details but pretty much everything from the first martini and mache salad with truffle oil (and perfect salt) to the organic wine selection and stunning dessert was mind-blowing.

This was my meal, the White Corn Tamales with raw cocoa mole, marinated portobellos and green tomato salsa, and my mom's Zucchini and Green Zebra Tomato Lasagna with basil-pistacio pesto, tomato sauce and pignoli ricotta. (bad old flash camera, but you get the point).

I couldn't believe I found out about this place on the LAST day of my NYC vacation.

My mom didn't hesitate to buy me the restaurant owner's book "Raw Food Real World" and I didn't hesitate to buy a dehydrator as soon as I got home.

The only problem now is that all the other raw places that I eat at do not compare (and they all use so much garlic!). I started with the cream of the crop... but maybe I would not have been so excited about raw food if it wasn't so overwhelmingly awesome.

Anyway, although this blog is for me to post my experiments in the kitchen, I thought I would pay respect to the place that gave me the spark just a short year ago.

I have made almost all of the recipes from Sarma's two books and they are always amazing. Here is a picture of the green coconut curry I made a while ago from her book Raw Food Real World.

...and the entire Christmas dinner I made this past Christmas from her book "Living Raw Food". I certainly did have seconds and thirds.

Ok bed time.

The New Salt

2010-06-19T18:03:00.010-06:00

Bonjour!
Can I tell you how wonderful the city of Montreal is? Oh gosh, where do I start?
The markets, oh the markets. I bought 4 different types of pepper from a spice/olive oil store. I bought a Cherimoya - only the best fruit on the planet, no big deal... It was so creamy and custardy with strawberry notes... I saved a bunch of the seeds and maybe one day when I don't live in the weather CRAPital of Canada I will be able to grow my own.
I was lucky enough to attend a soft opening for a restaurant called Tuck Shop (thanks Tyler and Meaghan). I am pretty sure the chefs sourced their produce from the back yard of the restaurant only minutes before they made my salad (and perhaps from the market) - so fresh. It reminded me a bit of the grand opening for the restaurant I work at (www.thebison.ca). A restaurant can really set itself apart by it's use of salt. The quality as well as the amount used is so important for any good dish. This is the first thing I noticed when I ate at Pure Food and Wine (www.purefoodandwine.com) in NYC last June and the first thing I noticed at Tuck Shop - how perfectly the salt was balanced with all of the other ingredients in my salad. I didn't take any pictures, opps, a little too much wine!
Anyway, pepper is the new salt today. Check it!

1.Voatsiperifery Wild Pepper from Madagascar - lovely fresh black pepper taste, much more complex than regular black pepper.

2. Tribal Early Harvest Green Pepper from India - spicy, fresh, so much flavour!

3. Wild Assam Pepper also from India - such a cool looking pepper, it is shaped like a little dried blackberry. Certainly does not smell or taste like a blackberry though. Smoky, woody, earthy. Pretty unique.

4. Green Sczechwan Pepper from China - Woah crazy! It makes your mouth numb. Has citrus notes and is very much like strong roasted coriander.

I can't wait to make some kick-ass recipes with these peppers, especially chocolate.

Eddie and Pierre are stoked too.

Oh yea, I also went to Crudessence (www.crudessence.com), Montreal's raw restaurant. It was very cute. I consumed a shake and an apple walnut crepe. I could not eat 99% of the savory stuff on the menu because it all contained un-extractable garlic. The shake was pretty good and the crepe wasn't bad, but creativity wasn't it's strong point. This crepe has inspired me to come up with the most fantastic raw crepe ever. Stay tuned . . .

Juice Bread

2010-06-13T11:48:00.018-06:00

I have been juicing a lot. I don't have one of those fancy juicers that delivers your baby for you, just a $25 garage sale juicer that has served me well so far (not pregnant yet). Carrots, spinach, kale, pears, apples, celery, cilantro, parsley, beets, cucumber, ginger... every vegetable gets a ride down the super happy fun tube. After the fun tube we usually make our way to the whirly twirly vita mix where we take a spin with Mr. Hemp, Mrs. Strawberry and their associates.

You might be wondering why I don't just whole food juice all of the vegetables in the vita mix. Well friend, that is because I like to make vegetable bread out of the pulp left over from juicing. So many different flavours every day, always a new bread or new cracker to be made.

Do you remember those Mr. Christie Vegetable Thins when you were a kid? Didn't your mom put them in your lunch all the time? What about the onion crackers with poppy seeds that made your breath quite foul? My vegetable crackers and onion crackers don't taste like those, but I just realized that I might be trying to subconsciously recreate them in super health form.

So basically I make bread and crackers from the same batter, it all depends on how thick you spread it on the teflex sheet (dehydrator sheet). Every vegetable bread recipe is different because I juice different things every day. This is a recipe I wrote down the other day, it is the red-ish crackers on the left in the picture below.

Red Vegetable Crackers/Bread

Pulp from juicing:
1 beet
2 celery stalks
3 carrots
1 pear
inch nub ginger skin on
1/3 cucumber skin on

Drink juice.

Add pulp to food processor with:
1 small zucchini, skin on, cut into chunks
2 onions, cut into chunks
approx 1 or 2 teaspoons pink peppercorns
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup braggs liquid soy/liquid aminos (I do not use Nama Shoyu because it contains wheat)
1/4 cup chia seeds, ground up (makes about 1/2 cup ground) (I do not use flax because I am intolerant to it)
1/4 cup or less sunflower seeds

Process until smooth, spread on teflex sheets thin (about 1/2 cm) or thick (1-1.5cm). Crackers or bread. Dehydrate at 105 degrees until tops are dry. Flip onto mesh screens to dry undersides. Dehydrate crackers until somewhat crispy. Dry bread until no longer wet but not crispy. You can choose to score the batter to define your cracker shape (top picture, far right) or just break apart into random shapes when dry.

Other variations:
Sometimes I will add nut flour left over from making nut milk (top picture frame, 3rd picture in, the light brown stuff), walnuts, cilantro, dill, cumin or whatever else is in the fridge or in the spice cupboard.

In the last picture frame above, the middle and right pictures are of onion crackers and onion bread. The onion bread is the base for all of the vegetable breads. I use one or 1.5 fewer onions when making vegetable crackers/bread.

Raw Onion Crackers/Bread

3 medium onions
1/4 cup chia seeds, ground (makes 1/2 cup ground)
1 cup sunflower seeds, soaked for a few hours, drained (soaking optional)
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup braggs liquid soy/liquid aminos

I always add a handful of fresh parsley and one stem worth of fresh rosemary when making plain onion batter.

Place everything in a food processor and blend until fairly smooth. Spread on teflex sheets and dry at 105 degrees until tops are dry. Flip onto mesh screens to dry undersides. Dehydrate crackers until somewhat crispy. Dry bread until no longer wet but not crispy (maybe 10-15 hours?)

The brown lines on the onion bread pictured below are my version of grill marks. I achieve this by slightly scoring the bread with a knife and spooning balsamic vinegar into the slits. No, balsamic vinegar is not raw, neither is braggs. Meh...

You can also make fantastic veggie burgers out of vegetable juice left-overs.
Never waste the pulp!

Kale to the Cauliflower Queen

2010-06-10T17:26:00.008-06:00

Good day to you. I have a simple recipe that doesn't involve a vita mix (but does require a food processor). I've been eating too much fruit and too many nuts and my eczema stuff is coming back. Time to feast on vegetables. I bought the most wonderful olives from Nu Roots - http://www.nu-roots.com/ - in Canmore the other day - Peruvian Raw Green Botija Olives by Essential Living Foods. Yum!

This is a recipe I have adapted from Sarma's book Living Raw Food for tabouleh salad.

Cauliflower Kale Salad

1 small/med head cauliflower broken apart and pulsed in a food processor until it looks like the picture below. Transfer it to a med/large bowl and add:

2/3 - 1 bunch of kale, not the curly kind, the darker green flatter kind, chopped into small pieces
a handful or two of flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
a handful of cilantro, finely chopped
1 large cucumber, finely chopped
a handful of raw pumpkin seeds
a handful of olives (whatever kind you like, I used a mixed bunch. chop them if they are big)
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (please don't use the bottled stuff!)
1/2 - 1 tsp pink sea salt, or to taste
3 tbsp olive oil
a few turns of black pepper

Mix it all together and eat it. I like to let it sit for about an hour so the salt infuses the vegetables and their juices are excreted into a flavour puddle at the bottom of the bowl. Toss the flavour puddle back throughout the salad and eat.

I think next time I will add dill or oregano, how exciting.

Days Off

2010-06-09T02:44:00.015-06:00

I've been creating for 2 straight days (days off).
I had an idea to make crispy strawberry/spinach/black
sesame/coconut chips and
blackberry/apple/coconut chips. They are in the
dehydrator now, can't wait until morning.

Blackberry Chips:

1/2-3/4 cup thawed frozen blackberries + juice from thawing
1 organic gala apple
juice from 1/2 lemon
1/2 tsp lemon zest
- place all in vita mix or high speed blender and blend
until smooth. transfer to a bowl and add: -

1 cup raw shredded dried coconut flakes
4 tablespoons hemp protein powder
1/2 tsp lemon zest

Mix well. scoop out 1/2 tablespoon sized portions onto a teflex
dehydrator sheet and flatten with bottom of glass.

I did this with half of the mixture, then added a tablespoon of
raw coconut oil and a pinch of sea salt to the rest of the batter
in the bowl, then formed that into thicker bars.

- It is now morning, they turned out ok. Blackberry ones are crispy little chips that are not too sweet (but I'm ok with that) and the strawberry spinach ones might have too many sesame seeds, but also a nice light crispy snack (full of calcium!). I think adding a bit of yacon syrup would have been nice, or banana to sweeten because although I will eat these snacks I'm not sure others would love them.

Sour cream and onion almonds also made an appearance in the kitchen today

Cashew Sour Cream
1 cup cashews, soaked overnight, drained
a bit of water... maybe 1/4 cup, maybe less?
1/4 tsp pink sea salt (Himalayan)

Blend in vita mix until creamy and smooth, add more water
to get desired consistency. (you want it pretty thick)
Add 2 Bio-K dairy-free probiotic pills (break pills open and pour
contents into cashew cream. discard pill shell. The probiotics are added to
create the sour or yogurt-like taste).
Blend again until just mixed. Pour into container and leave on
counter to activate probiotics for about 4 hours.

Chop up a few green onions. Coat as many almonds as you like in
the cashew sour cream and toss with green onions and sprinkle with more pink salt.

Dehydrate at 105 until dry.

Put the rest of the sour cream in the fridge and eat on stuff.

I made other things too... but it is 4am so I'm not going to tell you about them. Except one of the things was lucuma ice cream. Yum!

Bowl of Sand

2010-06-09T02:12:00.005-06:00

what would you eat if you chose not to eat the flesh of the dead, their fluids or their periods?

what would you eat if you were allergic to wheat, kamut, spelt, garlic, flax, most beans, oranges and grapefruits?

what about if you were told to stay away from all sugars and night shade vegetables?

maybe you could enjoy a bowl of sand.

i choose not to eat sand because ugh, how boring is that? not to mention, it gets all behind the wire on the back of my bottom teeth... gross.

this blog will take you inside my kitchen adventures that are the quest to continually impress my taste buds while sticking to this special needs (and raw food) diet. maybe you will find something you can eat too!